Originally Posted by
IAMORGAN
Yes, they can gate check it. It is a PITA though. I think they can also levy the excess bag charge if the pax already has checked luggage. The fact remains that the bag should not make it as far as the cabin.
It's quite funny to watch some people try to lift their bags up overhead, although as BBB notes, this is an accident waiting to happen. I hope there's some safety consideration behind the 23KG limit, because if everyone brought a 23K bag, there'd be an issue. Having said that, I've seen pictures of people sitting in overhead lockers, so they can't be that flimsy!!
We used to have a huge industry in weighing cabin bags. Boeing and airbus lockers are very strong and so the allowance was changed to primarily a dimension one over weight. The upper limit is 23k and we did some research and identified that very few people actually carry that much. We watch how customers lift bags into size gauges etc and this is a good indication of the heavier pieces which may then be weighted.
Personally I think we have struck the balance between safety and customer need about right. Of course there will always be the odd person who pushes the limits with no thought for others safety, but that's nothing new and not restricted to this version of the hand luggage policy.