Originally Posted by
Justin7525
If a jacket or purse is taking up bin space a flight attendant can ask whomever that purse/jacket belongs to store it under the seat. Will they? No. You can though. I've done it many times. "Excuse me, can you please place this under your seat so I don't have to check my bag?". If they say no, well I am sure you could think of something to say to make them feel 2 feet tall.
Originally Posted by
macoz
No I won't move my laptop, as I DID check my bag and AM already suffering that fate that you are trying to escape, specifically so that I could preserve my foot well and take up LESS overhead space than I am currently using.
I think Justin makes the best point in this thread in his full post. The whole problem here is that People under the Macoz view are trying to "preserve" their foot well. That foot well, is your primary storage and in order for the system to be fair to everyone, you must use it as such.
Checking your bag does leave more bin space for other bags, but it does not entitle you to not have to use your foot well and get to put something else in a bin in its place. Putting an item in the bin and not using your foot well, is just like bring your rollerbag on board. And while a laptop case may be smaller, it still reduced the bin from 5 bags down to 3-4 bags because of the height and width issue. So the argument of checking and putting other things in the foot well is a null argument as it does not make any difference in the available bin space.
Put it under the seat, and if there is room later, you can put it in the overhead bin.