I doubt this is specific to United, but I heard it from a United pilot a few weeks back who was dead heading and sitting next to me and a recent thread on Travel Buzz made me think to post this. If it’s not united specific enough I will not be offended if it moves to Travel Buzz. Pilots and FAs are my favorite seat mates, they always have great stories and love chatting.

So according to said pilot, United found that leisure travelers are the majority of those who check bags, and business travelers seldom do, especially FFs. They also found that the OH Bin space was not being fully utilized. In addition to these facts, they can rent out the cargo space to companies looking to transport inventory for extra money, they have been doing this for years and it’s very profitable for them. So putting all of these together, they came up with a plan: Charge leisure travelers who usually check, so you will make profit when they do, or force them to utilize the overhead space so you can still sell the cargo space, and then offer it for free to your FFs as a perk, who seldom check anyway.

Occasionally I am on a flight where they have to bump passengers due to the plane being over weight. I asking him if this was because they were selling too much cargo space and it was more profitable than passengers. He said it’s not, it’s actually due to weather patterns and if they have to go above a certain type of storm, they actually have to reduce the weight. But part of me still wonders.