When you sit in bulkhead seats, you cannot have any luggage at your feet, for both take-off and landing, but once airborne you are (supposed) to be able to retrieve your luggage (which might have a laptop) for use during the flight--if bulkhead pax can retrieve items from the overhead compartments, why shouldn't other pax be allowed do it too?
[From a comment in one of the "news" feeds, you are supposed to ask "permission" from a FA when retrieving items from the overhead bin.
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Quoted from abcnews:
"If there is something you need then by all means you have to talk to the flight attendant, don't touch them," said Schiavo.
I hope Schiavo (and her editor/boss) of that piece of cr*p article are assigned seats with IFE equipment under the seat in front for their next many flights. When she has a space so small she's lucky to get a paperback in it and can't put electronics or anything else of size in the seatback pocket, I hope she enjoys the prompt responses she gets every time she summons an FA to retrieve, wait, and re-stow her overhead belongings....
What a fool. Has she really ever set foot on a plane?
I'd like to see a rational FA weigh in on the matter; unfortunately, we have a few out there who might partially agree with this author about pax accessing the overhead bins during flight.