I would say that someone with a non compliant bag is a flagrant voilator - this is a person whose bag will never be compliant

Treating all equally also stops the "but you didn't stop him and his bag is too big"

Victimless crime, if the 0.5 inches affects nothing.

You're seeing a mugging and a guy littering and calling 911 on both.

If everyone starts going half an inch over that becomes several feet - these analogies to crimes are pointless - this is simply a case where the airline is stopping a rule being broken.

The analogy would be that in one case the mugging and littering occur and another that the police are there and stop both crimes from occurring. that one was less serious than the other , so what - both were stopped

Tell you what, let's bump this topic in 6 months and see. My vote is interim pissed off people and zero long term change, so basically this whole exercise is value free.

What's yours? That this helps?

Wow, so can I assume that you're going to call the cops next time you see someone littering? Or driving 5 over? After all, rules are rules, right?

And no, half an inch does not automatically become "several feet". What an absurd assumption. I regularly drive 5-7 mph over the speed limit, so should I worry about a cop giving me a ticket saying I was going 20 over? Apparently that's the same thing.

I have to say though - I was floored to see you write "AA" and "lousy" in the same sentence.

If AA can manage to collect a lot more checked bag fees from this round of AA cabin baggage program enforcement and it becomes a material
amount for AA, maybe AA management will try to stick to its guns this time and force more money out of all unsuspecting passengers and others whose attempt to carry on luggage in excess of what AA wants (and got approved by the FAA) for AA’s cabin baggage policy? Perhaps, but I’m not holding my breath counting on that to happen. Airline efforts to comprehensively, fairly and always police cabin baggage policy consistently and sustainably against passengers seem to have historically been more of a pipe dream than anything realistic. Could this time be different? Perhaps, but I doubt it for now.

When AS recently went down to 22x14x9, what I observed was that they would primarily stop bags that were fairly obviously over the limit - the ones AA seems to usually let through except for these occasional random checks. AS didn’t spend time focusing on or looking for minor violations, didn’t measure every bag, the people who were stopped had little to argue about, and boarding went smoothly. AS was consistent in that they would look for these egregious bags on every flight (at least ones that I flew).

That is what I wish AA would do. I don’t disagree that rules are rules and violations but I think police should focus on the people that are 20 mph over, not everyone who is 5mph over. Biggest bang for the buck and happiest customers.

The rule is so simple. It either fits or doesn't.
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...da03eb5191.jpg


As far as the white lines, the simplest guideline for GAs could be that the bag can overlap the white line but not cover it completely . If the bag is so large in one of its dimensions such that it completely covers the white line, then it is not compliant. (I don't think someone expects the GA to pull away the bag from the sizer to see for how much it is going over the white line to then apply "common sense" :rolleyes:)

What the effect of being more strict about enforcing the carry-on rules will be with customers? I don't know.
But what I can see, at least based on the reactions on this thread, is that some folks, very honest indeed, have said that they KNOW their Rimowa, for example, is not compliant and they are looking at the specs and have already looked for a smaller carry on. So it seems that the effect, at least with a few FTers, is to look for ways to comply and/or knowingly take the risk.

The current trend is to make economy flying as miserable as possible. The sizer is not going to get bigger. Checked bag fees were recently increased. Etc. It would not surprise AA adds a weight restriction. People are already pissed and will continue to get pissed off (all airlines) if not by this then by something else.

Well this guarantees my travel won't be on aa rest of this year. Hit status so absolutely the perfect time to experiment with other carriers! Nice work aa.

Flew out of RSW this week and the GA made one of the early boarding handicapped passengers put their bag in the sizer (and the GA would not assist the handicapped passenger). It was clearly a compliant bag and fit in the sizer, but what a stupid thing to do to a handicapped passenger. All of us in Group 1 waiting to board just shook our heads. For goodness sake, just look for passengers with 3+ bags and those with bags that are clearly oversized. There are enough of those to keep GAs busy. I fly out of RSW about a dozen times a year and have not seen anything like that happening on AA or UA in the past. Common sense people!

Flying out of phx today. Will take note if the size police are on duty.

Would a "soft sided garment bag" include one made of leather? Per their site AA says Soft-sided garment bags up to 51 inches / 130 cm (length + width + height) can also be taken as your carry-on item.

Seems these types of bags actually get a larger size allowance than a normal rollaboard. Seems a bit unfair.

FWIW: When I flew out of OKC last week, the agents were definitely taking note of bags.

Agreed, there has to be some consideration to the cost-benefit trade-off of this effort. There is a huge cost to evaluating every single bag when, what, maybe 10-15% are precisely over the limit and only 5% are meaningfully over the limit?
Maybe they should put a horizontal metal headpiece that slides down, like on a stadiometer at the doctor's office so there can be no discrepancy (based on viewing angle) whether the bag is "within" the white line or "outside" the line. But that just seems to be a total waste of time and money.

Why can't AA just write its policy to be "Suggested maximum dimensions are 22x14x9, subject to gate agent discretion." Wouldn't that get the FAA off its back?

lets get something straight. This is NOT an FAA mandated requirement. This is the FAA telling AA that they have to abide by their own posted requirements. There are other airlines that have larger and/or different specifications that the FAA allows as well. So this is AA's own requirement that the FAA is calling AA out on. AA can change this requirement just as easily, but what the FAA is apparently not allowing them to do is to be arbitrary on it.