Flying from LAX -> ATL -> SAV tonight. I am a professional photographer traveling on assignment, which means in my roll-aboard is probably $60k worth of equipment (medium format cameras, lenses, computers, etc, DYKWIA
blah blah), basically everything I need to make a living. It all fits perfectly in a rather standard bag, which, albeit heavily, I am easily able to lift and put in the overhead bins. This is my only carry-on. I have marginal-at-best DL status, client was paying for transportation so I'm stuck boarding towards the end.
I get to the gate agent about 2/3rds of the way through the boarding process and immediately get a load of tone from the gate agent telling me how that has to be checked through to my final destination, full flight, overhead bins already full, etc. Before I can even say anything she is printing out the tags and trying to put it on my bag. Right in front of me on the jetway is a clearly startled family tearing things out of their bags because they'd also been told there was no room left on the flight, and they too, would have to take what they could from their bags and leave them in the cargo hold.
At this point I'm trying to discuss what's in the bag with the gate agent, of course she isn't having any of it and since I don't want to look like an idiot for holding up the line, painfully admit defeat here, and take out what I can (camera body, computer, etc) and cross my fingers that everything will arrive in one piece.
I walk down the jetway and get on the plane and see AT LEAST HALF OF THE OVERHEAD BINS ARE EMPTY.
This is absolutely infuriating. F/As of course won't let me go collect my bag, so I sit there fuming and full of anxiety for the entire flight over something that I was more or less lied to about. Why the heck would the gate agent be so absolutely convinced that there is no more room in the overhead bins for luggage, and be so clearly wrong? Of course the gear is insured and everything, but it's an enormous hassle, especially when on the way to do work and there is a very real possibility of lost/missing luggage on a time-sensitive assignment.
It of course sounds a little 'DYKWIA' of my to say 'well I'm a photographer, this is expensive stuff, etc' and that of course everyone's belongings should be treated fairly, but there was a somewhat comical amount of room left in the overhead bins. It was a 767, maybe 3/4 full in the rear cabins. I would be pissed even if I wasn't a photographer, just a normal guy who ended up having to deal with this, or god forbid a family of four with small children.
Hugely disappointing.