Originally Posted by
rhinok
I have yet to explicitly see "express" boarding, but on a recent connection in Denver, the gate agent did ask for passengers to come up, check the size of their luggage against the cage and then check it if it was too big. She said this was due to passengers who've paid for their luggage to be stowed are getting upset due to people trying to get on with oversized bags.
Frankly, while I like the concept of express boarding, as it has been explained above, it seems to me that people could use it simply to get their luggage checked for free. Gate checking should be used for things that are required to get to the gate (wheelchairs, strollers, etc..) or carry-on sized baggage for which there's no room (all bins full or a regional jet, for example). Allowing a horde of passengers to gate check on a flight that could otherwise handle the bags seems contradictory to the policy of charging for checking luggage.
Does frontier tag gate checks through to final destination and return them on the belt, or are they picked up at the jetbridge? If they just come back to the jetbridge, I don't see a problem. After all, the passenger did most of the bag toting, and it's not like you can get a bag much larger than carryon size through security (the tsa doesn't enforce size rules, but the portal on the xray scanner does
)
It seems that most people who check bags do so because they have either 3+ ounces of liquids or more stuff than can fit in a personal item+carryon-size bag. Being able to gate check for free won't save those people any bag fees.