gateH15

You can’t assign bin for everyone, simply not enough space

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

Because someone is going to board and see the bin space taken above their seat. But if there's empty space somewhere else have all paxs for that row boarded yet or are there empty seats? What happens if someone puts their bag above an empty 14C and 5 minutes later the pax in Seat 14C boards and sees no space above his/her seat. This would be a disaster.

jordyn

Couldn't you make the same argument for seat assignments? In theory it's true that people can just arbitrarily sit in any seat regardless of seat assignment, but pretty quickly almost everyone has learned how the assignments work and there's not chaos with people sitting in the wrong seats or assuming that because it's available when they board they can just choose whatever open seat there is.

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

The difference is that there is only a seat per butt. However, on a crowded flight there might not be ample room for all bags. Also that bin space would be shared by 3 people and what if someone has a bigger bag that takes up space and boards first? If there isn't space above one's seat but space elsewhere telling them they are going to still need to check a bag is going to be problematic. And again what if they store a bag in a seemingly open space, someone boards late and their space was taken by another pax?

Also how could FAs ever possibly enforce this (leave alone would they)? They can't watch every space. Few paxs would ever blop their butt into a seat not assigned to them but you can bet if space over row 22 is not empty but row 23 has space some pax in row 22 will place their bag there.

jordyn

This seems to totally ignore the proposal, which is to clearly label portions of the bin space. You're right that would probably reduce overall capacity, which is a downside, but it doesn't seem like confusion is inevitable or squatting is more of a problem than it would be with seats.

ryan182

Yes I saw that too on a UA flight a few months ago, its a simple fix that works especially because when I was boarding 1 of the people who got the BEEEEP was a companion and allowed the other was not and the GA sent them back. Sadly even if AA implemented this, with the focus on D0 I'm skeptical that most GAs would do anything but scan the next BP
I was 1K for over 10 years, even had a couple as GS, and back then 1K boarded with F which seemed reasonable. When I first moved to AA this difference caught me off-guard as I missed an upgrade on one of my first flights on my match and marched my happy self up to board with Group 1 only to be scolded by the GA who explained I should know better (To be fair she had no idea I was EXP only due to the match and thus really didn't know better). Fast forward when I took my first UA flight in a long time this year in paid F it was insane the number of groups they board before F: Veterans, Families, GS and 1K are all pre-board....in IAD where I was flying out of about half the plane boarded (mostly 1Ks) before paid F! So I quite like how AA orders things over the current UA system.

Then problem is less Group 2 and more that so many, OK perhaps less in the future with the MP changes, are 1K and they are offered preboarding after GS but before Group 1. Delta is worse I don't follow; Delta allows Diamond and First to board after military and wheelchairs, I find that rather sensible.

cmtlatitudes

Yes, exactly what I experienced at IAD with United. Literally 40-50 people boarding ahead of me, as I'm standing holding my paid F ticket, (thinking why did I bother with this), and then had to make an embarrassing fuss to get my carry-on two bins behind me. I really liked the short non-stop flights out of IAD on United to the Caribbean. But since United has gone to these new boarding policies, flying AA with a connection out of DCA is almost more palatable for me than an IAD non-stop for short flights, especially as the added travel time and cost for me to Dulles negates some of the non-stop benefit anyway.

I've not noticed any tangible impact from Delta's boarding process on my paid F tickets. It's always seemed similar to AA to me. It's only United's new process that is smack dab in my face, mocking my F ticket purchase! :-)

ckendall

Somehow IAD-AUS and battling for overhead space seemed better to me than changing in DFW but that's just me (though Dulles is a pain).