Flew this morn IAH-PHL, it was a 735 Im in 2B. Got to the Gate 15 mins B4 departure time. Got the Dreeded line, sorry your carry-on has to be checked all the Bins are full. I asked including the FCs, Yep I was told. I Needed to get in on with Me as I was gonna be pressed when arriving to get somewhere and didnt want to waste my time waiting for the bags at Baggage Cliam.

The GA tags my bag and says "You can give it a try but there are bags down the Jetway already. 1st time on the 735. Get on board and the FA gives me the same line, I questioned him a few times , then out of no where this Gentleman who is sitting in 5D and overheard our conversation, comes up and says" 1 moment I have my bag up in the Bin and since the seat next to me is gonna be empty I will put it under that seat and let this guy put his bag up in the bin.

Couldnt stop Thanking this Guy. We are waiting for 1 last passenger and for FC. The guy comes on and recognizes the guy in 2A, hes in 2E, so I asked Him if he would like to switch seats so that he can sit next to his friend. We switched. Now the Guy who took his bag out of the bin is behind me. Hes a tall guy also. This Flight was the 1st time I Never reclined my seat, I wanted to give him some extra leg room as a way of Thanking Him for letting me stow my bag in the bin. His bag was on the Coach side of the Bin, so he didnt have to move it.

My Point, throughout this thread, Ive read about the nastiness that has happened, I just wanted to post that Not all occurances pretaining to the Bins are Horror stories.

being I left LAS@ 1am and had a 3 hr layover @IAH, I really needed to recline and get some shut-eye. Just it was more Important to me then and there that this Guy be as comfortable as I can help make him be.

Good for you! I wish everyone could be like you and the guy behind you.

You read my mind. Sideways is not an option, but I've seen FA's turn it wheels in and if it doesn't fit, they put it back sideways and make ME put my briefcase somewhere else! Why don't they have to check it?

As for the "if you can't lift it", how many times have I seen some 100 lb woman to lift a 50 lb bag into the overhead and almost dropping it on someone's head? Or even worse, they just stand there and ask if anyone can help them. If it's too heavy for them, they shouldn't bring it on. The rest of the pax are not their personal attendants.

Don't worry about it so much. I'd be glad to help out so grumpy people don't have to be bothered to get up to help others. I know what a burden it can be at times.

Technically....it still fits even if it is sideways, that's why we do that. The rules are, it must fit in the o/h bin or under the seat in front of you, NOT that it has to fit in long ways in the o/h bin, but I don't move someone else's bag unless I have no other choice and we are crunched for time, but before I move anyone's bag, I do ask whose bag it is and if they would mind if I put it in the one across from them if it fits better. I have NEVER had anyone tell me not to move thier bag, MOST people are all about getting out on time and on our way instead of throwing a tantrum about thier bag being moved very close to where it was in the first place.

I do agree about the heavy bags being brought on board, my personal pet peeve...When I first became a F/A, I helped everyone by lifting and putting the bag in the o/h if it was too heavy for them, and eventually hurt my back by doing that......I am not going to risk hurting my back any further by puttiing someone else's bag that THEY packed into the o/h....I WILL assist them, but I will not pick it up and do it myself. To those of you Gentlemen that offer to do it, I appreciate you! I try to make light of it with the woman and say.....Did you pack this bag? If it's too heavy for you, then it's too heavy for me.

Can you imagine what it is like on SWA? You must have people trying to bring their goats and chickens onboard! HAHAHAHAH

A lot of us do try to keep them closed to deter the coach roaches from throwing their bags up there.

The unfortunate part is that quite often the F/C bins fill up with luggage from First Class pax even before all of the first class pax have showed up.

I watch the luggage stowage pretty closely, and more often than not, the bins in f/c fill up with First Class Pax luggage as opposed to a combination of f/c and coach pax. . Myself and others try to keep an eye on empty f/c class seats versus saving space for the last to board f/c pax and upgrades, but more and more, its f/c pax taking space from their fellow f/c class pax. This same sort of thing happens with the elite boarding in coach. Those fwd bins in coach will be completely full and only a handful of elite pax have boarded. In regards to carry on space, elites seem to be their own worst enemy. Not to mention, I am repeatedly amazed at how poorly many elites will stow their bags...like they have never flown before. Granted, I do know that not all eiltes are frequent flyers, but even the ones who "seem" to know what they are doing bring on the most and stow it the most haphazardly.

It seems these days that we are boarding carry on luggage and stowing pax. It has become a complete mess.

Not to mention: Winter time and coats!

F/C bin space is also compromised with the curvature of the plane at the front. Bags that fit lengthwise elsewhere often cannot go in lengthwise in the first 2 bins on each side on most of the 737s. Also, Pax in the first row of f/c often have to stow their smaller bags in the bins since there is no storage space in front of them on the floor. Sometimes the first bins on both sides will not open as fully limiting the size of bag that can be squeezed in there...similar to where the "exit" sign hangs from the ceiling at the f/c coach divider.

Ironically after reading this thread, I witnessed an incident on the EWR-JAX flight this am that displayed just how selfish and self-absorbed some first class pax are.

I was seated in row 1, so naturally my laptop bag and rollerbag had to go up in a bin. The other people in Row 1 (we all boarded right away) took the bins right above row 1, so I took the bin over row 2.
A few minutes later, a man comes on the plane, and before even gettign to row 2, he complains to FA that there are 8 seats in First, so why are all the bins taken up? Then he blamed this on coach pax sticking their bags in the first class bins. So the FA goes and MOVES MY BAGS back, in the bin the first row above coach. I said that the bags were mine, not a coach pax. The man who had the FA move my bags then said "Well then whose bags are above YOU" and the man next to me in row 1 said " They are mine, do we have a problem" and the situation died down, namely because I wasn't going to make a big deal. But it woudl have been easier for the person in row 2 to walk back to coach rather than row 1 - but this guy was having none of it.

What makes it worse is that the FA allowed him to do this - once I had stated the bags were indeed mine, they shouldn't have been moved. This will just ensure the guy does this next time he is on a flight.

This is crazy! OTOH, it does prove why it might not be feasible to move coach bags out of the FC bins - the polite FC people might not notice or speak up quickly enough!

At least you didn't have to worry about being polite and not reclining your seat!

Oh, I reclined my seat alright. He and his wife were sitting together behind me, each with a lap baby. After his display about the bags, there was no way I would accomodate a request to not recline my seat (thankfully no one mentioned it).

Yesterday, a guy kept trying to shove his bag into the bin (F), totally smashing my soft-sided leather duffel. People have no respect.

I was watching this sorry bloke try to shove his oversized bag into the bin and it wouldn't go. He kept taking it down and taking some stuff out and tried again, still wouldn't go in. After about three or four tries, the FA finally came over and told him the luggage branding plate was catching at the top of the bin latch which is why the bag wasn't going in. So the FA pushed down the top and it went in. So he pulls the bag out and stuffs everything he had taken out back in. Now he tries to put the bag back in the bin and it won't fit again and he thinks its the luggage plate but it was really just too much stuff. So the cycle starts again with him. By this time the FA hightailed it out of there. It was quite amusing.

This past weekend, I flew F on a 735 and boarded after all the other F passengers were seated. There was some room left for bags above 2EF, but that bin is impeded somewhat by the exit sign bracket. The FA actually offered to help me stow my rollaboard and, if it did not fit in because the bin did not open all the way, to take stow it somewhere else. My rollaboard ended up fitting into the bin, but it was a nice gesture on the part of the FA to make room for it somewhere else.

OK, based on my flight today I'm convinced that we need to have the size bins back and more serious enforcement of carryon's (and I am angry with CO for encouraging excessive carryon's). The flight was full and of course there was no room for about 1/4 of the luggage. I sat near a guy in an exit row who would normally have been able to store his bag (within limits sized) just hide it from the FAs by putting it close to his feet (who were so busy with the big bags) and he kept it in this unsafe place for the whole flight. If CO regulated carryons this would not have occurred, since he would have had lots of room to store it. So this policy of "bring your bags on board, we don't check" is really unsafe.