Gate agents lying to passengers that flight is full
Hi, not a frequent poster, wasn't sure where is the best place to ask this question / raise issue with AS:
I recently flew on a transcon flight from EWR-SFO. Shortly before boarding started, a gate agent got on the PA and said that the flight was completely full and requested that passengers pre-check their bags at no additional charge, yadda yadda yadda we've all heard this before.
The rub here is that the flight was NOT full - the screen behind the counter read that the flight was 20-30 seats under capacity, and that was roughly consistent with what I saw on the actual flight. The agent repeated the announcement at least one or two more times, clearly stating that the flight was going to be completely full (aka not an accident, he really meant it).
It bothers me that a gate agent would blatantly lie to us like this. I understand his wanting to get extra bags checked, but I feel like lying to customers to elicit the desired behavior is the wrong way to go about things. Have other folks seen this? Is there something I'm missing?