nako, I am glad you see the situation the same as I do. Aside from repeating what I already assumed most of you would say. I can only presume you meant that in jest.

The agent acted as best she could, and all ultimately was fine. Are employees safer? Possibly, although one could argue more bags and increased repetative motion are just as troublesome, but that is irrelevant to the following fact. AS put this employee in a position of having to be confrontational (albeit in a friendly manner) when it was arguably unnecessary. The employee was not in a situation to say, lets see, the flight is half full, 2 lbs over, mother with baby, mabee i'll let the 2lbs slide. Not too long ago agents were allowed to make these kind of on the spot decisions.

It's not too unlike a police office pulling you over for doing 5 over the limit. Sometimes the officer is going to nail you, not necessarily because you were 5 over, but because it was snowing and there were kids walking along the sidewalk less than 5 feet away, clearly a dangerous situation. The same office might not even look at you twice going 5 over in a different set of circumstances. But technically you'd still be breaking the law.

This empowerment was part of what encouraged AS employees to treat the customers well and gave the company the best customer service reputation in the industry. Many peole have stated on this board that this reputation (while still better than most) is rapidly declining.

Being strict on charging for overweight bags itself is hardly an issue worth discussing. I'm not interested in a big debate on the issue as I'd never win on the grounds that 50 lbs is 50 lbs. But add all of these small issues from this board and soon you see a small wave of change that has degraded the very thing that made AS stand out to begin with.

I am curious on how any employees feel about enforcing these new rules. Have you been given less flexibility? Do you feel less empowered in your job? and if so, does it (even if inadvertently) affect the way you treat customers?