Originally Posted by
strickerj
It doesn’t really make sense to me to get rid of overhead bins entirely (incurring considerable expense in the process) because a tiny minority of passengers fight over them.
+1. Airlines are not going to get rid of overhead bins. It would decrease cargo space, increase baggage handling costs and result in further delays at the carousels. It's preferable to have one-third to one-half of the bags carried on and off the plane by passengers.
What would help and be achievable is greater scrutiny at the gate. Currently, BA and some other airlines are tagging personal items. Doing the reverse and requiring tags for all bags in the overhead might be more appropriate. Any untagged bag in the overhead would be removed and checked. Untagged personal items would have to go under the seat.
A more dramatic step would be reducing the carry-on dimensions to the personal item size. There would be more room in the overhead and people could still carry on essential items. It would however, like removing overheads, create additional costs for the airlines and delays for passengers as millions of former carry-on bags would require being checked.