You’re right — they are shared space, but shouldn’t that be shared between necessary equipment for the aircraft, and paying passengers’ bags? Also, elite boarding order as a benefit implies some expectation that by getting on early you can expect to find the bin above your seat empty except for other elite passengers’ bags who’ve also boarded then or earlier, and equipment that was already there before anyone boarded the plane.

Some bonus miles would be nice and I’m tempted to ask for them.

But my complaint is actually that this seems to be part of what I sense is an increasing laziness and lackadaisical attitude on the part of AA flight attendants.

On our return BA flight LHR-JFK, the cabin crew not only served drinks and the two meals separately, but came round probably three other times with tea/coffee/water/juice, found us two special meals to make up for the fact that the vegetarian option in economy was all used up, and seemed to be constantly busy but also cheerful.

By contrast, on AA JFK-LHR aside from this disagreeable encounter with the FA, there were no drinks runs and they insisted the shades be lowered even though it was a day flight.

I've discussed that issue on FT in another thread, but my hunch now is that they do that to encourage passengers to sleep so they have to work less hard. I say that because I also often find AA transatlantic flight attendants chatting on their own in the galley, curtain closed, practically bristling when “disturbed” by a passenger for a request.

This all adds up to a feeling that on AA the priority is flight attendant convenience not serving passengers.