gpez

I've flown quite a bit in my life but have never seen this: on my totally full flight this morning the woman in the aisle seat had apperantly had her carryon suitcase on the floor the entire flight which seemingly went unnoticed by the FAs the entire flight. When I say "carry on suitcase" I mean a full sized roller bag not a handbag or whatnot. When I saw it it was because she had her feet on top of the bag (!) when we landed since it was way too big to fit under the seat. Confused I asked her why she had her bag down and she said that there wasn't any room in the overhead bins and she had it there the whole flight.

I mentioned something quickly to the FA on the way out but I'm not sure she quite understood what I had meant. This really seems like a safety issue...the whole point of keeping the foot area clear by storing your bags under the seat in front of you is to make egress easy if there is an emergency.

I really want to send a letter to AA and bring this to their attention, am I off base?

swag

Well, the bag is allowed there except during taxi, takeoff, and landing. So the FA may have noticed during the beverage service, but correctly taken no action then.

But, yes, it's a safety issue. It's the main reason for the pre-departure and landing walkthroughs, but the FAs do often seem to miss stuff during those. If you spoke to the FA, it's inexcusable that they didn't address it before landing.

If it were in my row, potentially impeding my exit, I would have pressed the issue with the passenger and/or the FA.

skylady

It all depends on how many inches that it was protruding. Can you clarify?

Thumper

There are going to be times in life when not all rules are followed.

I can't weigh this as something that would motivate me to start a thread on the subject and now contemplate writing a letter to AA. If it was my row and blocking me, I would have spoken up. But it doesn't sound like this affected you in any way or was any of your business.

Are you looking for discipline for the FAs, hunting down the alleged perpetrator or new signage reinforcing this regulation? What would be the goal of your writing them?

How do you handle all the people on the phone during taxi to take off?

(you asked our opinions)

LGAoverJFK

I've actually seen this before. I was on a full flight back to New York and the couple next to me had a full size carry-on bag that didn't fit into the overhead bin. I was flying standby in coach () in an aisle seat and the couple was in the middle and window seats to my right. At first I thought they were going to rotate the bag so that it fit under EF in the row in front of us, but they just left it hanging into their aisle. It wasn't impeding my exit so I didn't say anything to the FA about it, but I did make a comment to them about how I don't think the FA is going to allow it. It turns out they barely spoke English. I didn't want to get them in trouble (and possibly delay the flight) so when the FA came around to do their checks I didn't say anything (but I didn't deliberately help hide the bag for them either). We ended up taking off and landing without issue, but I can't imagine that was a comfortable flight for them...

Should I have said something to the FA? I didn't think this was something that happened often, but I guess with the bag fees people get desperate.

brp

Agreed. I foresee this non-AA-specific issue being moved elsewhere in the near future

Cheers.

southernmom

why don't they charge to take bags on the flight vs check them in? it would speed up the boarding process as well as deplaning.... as a passenger, I would rather carry mine on so I would pay more to carry it on

mikeef

+1

Spirit charges for carrying on and checking, and it definitely sped up boarding.

But if the majors did this, the outrage from passengers (and then, of course, from Congress, since they seemingly have nothing better to do than go after the airlines; Chuck Schumer would actually drown in a pool of his own saliva) would force them to back down.

Having said that, if every airline had AK's 20-minute guarantee, I would be highly encouraged to check a bag that I might otherwise carry on.

Mike

Weenie

What color was the bag in question? Did you happen to notice the manufacturer?

magic111

Please follow the topic/thread in the TravelBuzz forum as this is a non specific airline topic.

~moderator

QueenOfCoach

If you really felt that passenger safety was compromised, the time to speak up was when you realized the other passengers had no plans to properly stow the bag before takeoff.

"Sir, Ma'am? I am not sure if that bag (pointing down) is legally stowed."

I don't know what line of work you are in, but most workers prefer that a problem be brought to their attention when they are in a position to correct it, not a week later when it's moot.

LGAoverJFK

What is the significance of this question?

In my case IIRC it was brownish-gray.

bitburgr

In my case, an AC FA told me to stow my rollaboard under my seat. It was a long ride with my feet propped up.
Perhaps sarcasm?

dcpatti

While we'd all love it if the FA's caught every potential safety issue or passenger rule-breaking incident, the reality is there's just 3 or so in the main cabin of a domestic flight that may have 150 or more passengers. Things will go undetected just because there's not enough eyes to go around. If you really think something is hindering your safety--- and a bag that protrudes from under the seat to the point where it blocks your foot-path qualifies in my book--- it's perfectly OK to speak up. If you don't feel comfortable asking the bag's owner to stow it more securely, you can always ring the FA call bell and ask the FA to assist; however, I think a lot of passengers (especially inexperienced ones) might see that as a bit of a hostile move, and you may have a long and painful flight with the passenger next to you seething.

I think mentioning it to the FA on deplaning is hit-or-miss because they probably don't know what you're talking about, and can't do anything about it now anyway.

As for if you should complain to the airline or not, that's up to you but if you do, I'd word it as more of a request that FA's are reminded of the need for dilligence when doing pre-flight safety checks and less of "this FA didn't listen to my complaint when i deplaned." After all, that's the key message of your complaint, so why cloud it with irrelevant details?

EricH

It sounds like you didn't notice it until you were landing, so maybe it wasn't very noticeable.