Originally Posted by
cbn42
It clearly says that "each traveler can bring on board one carry-on bag plus one personal item free of charge". There are no asterisks or disclaimers anywhere about room not being available. Perhaps it's in the fine print somewhere else.
I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that airlines will provide the service they advertise. Of course sometimes it's just not possible, but in those cases they should work with you to provide another alternative rather than saying sorry, you're out of luck.
I've always wondered about that myself. If they know they don't have room in the overhead bins for that, and if they're not going to enforce the rule (because they often don't - how many times have all of us seen pax boarding with more bags than a Samsonite shop), then they shouldn't advertise it.
I've reached the point I just pay for priority these days because I don't want to deal with it anymore. Even on official travel, if I'm not in uniform or I know the airline doesn't let military in uniform board first (or I'm not flying in uniform), I pony up for Economy Plus out of pocket. It's worth it to me, especially if the uniform I need for the next day/first day of whatever I'm going to is IN my carry-on. So I suppose I'm paying to carry on a bag, really...
