Originally Posted by
orbitmic
OP's experience seems to be unpleasant (I assume that when you say "regular" carry on, you mean that it fits the BA allowed dimensions), and I much prefer gate staff to try and ask for volunteers. That said, for what it's worth, not trying to be a moral police here, but personally, I'm always left puzzled and a bit uneasy with FTers' tendency to refer to various airline personnel in lounges, check points, etc as "dragons". Some are nice, some are not, but I find the term rather gratuitously disparaging. It's just a normal job and most of them try to do it well.
By 'regular', I mean the carry on I've used on a couple hundred BA segments in various classes in both long haul and short haul. it's a 'normal' bag, a 3 day carry-on basically. Nothing extortionate like you see on US domestic flights for example. Never been challenged on the bag size before.
On the dragon piece, I hear your feedback. These people did not seem like 'dragons', I was reusing the lounge term as that was in my mind as I was writing the post when thinking about the experience. These people certainly did not show the best of BA. They are not representative of the majority.