CatchFlightsNotFeelings

American Airlines Will Start Aggressively Auditing Carry On Bags November 1st

https://viewfromthewing.com/american...carry-on-bags/

seems to to be a step in the direction of Spirit, and yet another degradation of the passenger experience.

ryan182

Sorry but this bit is just nonsense, they are not doing this to get more bag fees (AA gate checks for free) or to make it such that you can only travel with a carry on that goes under the seat vs OHB unless you pay more - IOW not at all like Spirit. They are doing this because...well they have to! If you're an airline and the FAA, who is the primary regulatory body that governs your business, tells you that you need to step up your compliance...logic and reason dictate you comply as the ramifications of not doing so can be significant.

cmtlatitudes

What exactly are they auditing / reason for the audit/ compliance concern? Is it carry-on contents compliance, carry-on bag size, or number of carry-ons? There's not much (any?) detail in the Link.

SouthernCross

Is this speculation, or are you specifically aware of something that supports this?

Finkface

According to the linked article in the OP:

“American told customer service managers this week by memo that “[t]he FAA issued a notification to American Airlines indicating [they] are failing to comply with [their] carry-on baggage program parameters.”

In response the airline “committed to increase the number of self-audits at each mainline station” starting November 1.”

SouthernCross

thanks... I should have RTFA

Dave Noble

or an improvement of the passenger experience for those that comply already , with less kitchen sinks being taken onboard given that that 'fit inside the locker'

ryan182

You are correct there's not detail about what they are not properly enforcing, but I'd wager large sums of $ that its size not number of bags.

Its pretty simple for a GA recognize that a passenger has >2 bags and AA isn't in the "contents" business (except I suppose Li Ion batteries) as thats TSAs job.

Where as we all know, have seen, and read threads a'plenty on FT about being caught with oversized carryons where posters are upset about enforcement, so that's my bet. I don't think I've had a flight in recent memory (on any US airline to be fair) where I didn't personally witness someone going down the aisle with a bag that was clearly oversized - sometimes its just ridiculous other times the "bag" might meet the dimensions but how its stuffed and expanded it does not, conversely I don't recall seeing someone board with >2 bags that wasn't stopped.

hotturnip

Like AA isn't doing this already?

One of the reasons I dread flying AA is their hyper-aggressive gate-checking of carryon bags. I've been on flights where they start forcing people to check bags early in the boarding process, and after everyone has boarded you can see huge gaps in all the overheads.

What the heck are they going to "audit?"

GlobalMatt

I question the timing after the last shareholder quarterly call where delays were blamed for everything. Seems like a play to get better "D0" results for Q4 and claiming the "regulators" are the ones asking for it. Or is this just another classic case of shuffling the decks on the Titanic?

ryan182

You're conflating two separate issues, the "we are going to have to gate check roller boards for anyone in group 5/6/7" is for AAs benefit to meet D0 (on-time departure) as they are speculating that those bags won't find OHB space and are trying to avoid gate-checks after boarding has started because that delays departure. The FAA gives pretty much exactly -0- Fs about AAs internal policies that prioritize D0 over everything, what they do care about is that AA stipulated in filings to the FAA what the maximum dimensions of carryons they will allow. I might be wrong here but as I understand it that filing and those dimensions are essentially a FAR which means that AA needs to abide by them and not doing so gets the attention of the FAA, which apparently has occurred and now AA will "self-audit" aka we got this Mr/Mrs regulator, sorry - will fix ASAP please leave us alone. For pax this probably means more scrutiny of bag sizes at least for the short term, like all else in this realm eventually it will fade away until next time....

ryan182

The FAA doesn't care about D0, at all. Also say what you will about AAs execs, there's just no universe where they would be dumb enough to falsely claim they got an FAA notice as that would be next-level stupid. I'm fairly certain that the FAA also has access to the Internet and they surely would not have a favorable opinion of that activity.

GlobalMatt

You might be surprised with what public company execs will say/do. But that's for another off-topic thread...

ryan182

No chance this "memo" wouldn't leak, thus anyone sensible would know that if they tried to lie about this that the FAA would see it. Just crazy town to suggest otherwise.

mtofell

I don't care what the reason, any step towards enforcement of the rules with carry-on bags is sorely needed.