Originally Posted by eyecue
As far as FWAAA says and the number of bags: I tried to get to the bottom of this issue over a year ago. I can tell you that it is murky. While the TSA website tells you what the number of bags are that are allowed, the TSA doesnt take enforcement action. As far as checkpoint screeners are concerned, they dont care. At DEN it is up to the private ticket checkers before the checkpoint to inform the pax that they are over the limit on the number or size of carry on.
Excellent post.
There's some rumors floating around AA employees (I am NOT an employee of AA or any of its affiliates) that AA was recently fined by the FAA/TSA (don't know which and nobody I've talked to seems to know) for allowing pax to ignore the one plus one limit. As a result, AA has begun crackdowns at the entrance to the checkpoint in some cities and crackdowns at the gate in other cities, forcing pax to use the sizer boxes (which weed out a lot of oversized carryons).
As with many government mandates, the enforcement is left to the airlines. With the threat of government fines for noncompliance.