Has this ever happened to you? How often would you say this happens? Most important of all....how in the BLUE HECK does it happen?!

Don't they just walk it down the stairs and shove it on the baggage reel? That sounds like the simplest thing in the world!

As you may surmise, this just happened yesterday to a good friend of mine (not me, whew!) on a DFW-MIA AA flight. Absolutely ridiculous.

DFW-MIA? Wouldn't that be mainline (as opposed to American Eagle/Connection)? I was under the impression that airlines don't usually do gate-checked bags for mainline flights - it's only for Regional Jets.

I know I've heard announcements onboard a mainline flight, just prior to departure, as they try to identify the folks who left their suitcase at the end of the jetbridge, thinking there was gate-checked service. Did your friend perhaps leave his/her suitcase at the end of the jetbridge assuming that the suitcase would be whisked away to the bottom of the plane, when nobody was looking to do so?

sometimes the overhead is full & pax have to gate check their carry on....

sometimes the bags get sent to baggage claim, rather than to the plane door area....

its tough in the field!

Most of the time, on mainline, when the overheads are full, they check bags to the final destination (i.e. baggage claim). I can't recall seeing overheads being full on mainline result in gate checked bags, although it's entirely possible.

This does bring up another possibility for the OP's friend - perhaps the friend thought it was being gate checked for planeside pickup, but it actually went to baggage claim?

Yes they do gate check on mainline but always for pickup at baggage claim (and I've seen it happen most frequently on DFW-MIA).

Ask your friend if he went to baggage claim and then couldn't find it. If so then definitely right to be upset.

I have been on flights where gate checked bags normally get delivered at the gate on arrival but where sometimes such flights arrive without some or any of the gate check bags because some people forgot to load it, didn't want to load it, weren't there to load it, or it was otherwise misplaced or mishandled on the ground at either the departure or arrival airport.

By the way, even on mainline they sometimes gate check items for delivery at the gate. This goes for all the US majors.

One of the WORST experiences on an airline involved them losing my Gate Checked bag!

I missed my connection but they got me on another airline but told me to RUN as they were holding the doors for me but would hold them only 5 minutes and it was the last flight of the night. I literally RAN to the gate completely out of breath as it was a LONG way and as I arrived they told me I had to gate check my carry on. I quickly started going thru it getting out my valuables while they were rushing me along, telling me "hurry hurry we can't wait any longer" and so I got out what I thought was most valuable and handed it to them.

halfway to my seat, I realized I had left me car keys inside, smacked myself upside the head, but figured, it's a gate check, it will make it there fine..... right???

Well of course it didn't. They said it would come the next morning. It was 1am when we landed and I had to overnight in a hotel at my expense. Then they never did find the bag and I had somehow lost the claim check in the rush and they wouldn't admit they had ever taken my bag so I lost everything in it including my BMW key which cost almost $300 to have a new one made. Plus having to rent a car to drive to GET a new one made the next day.

I figure I lost close to $1000 by gate checking my bag that day (including the cost of the tumi bag itself).

Now, you will have a VERY hard time convincing me to part with my bag anymore unless it is on a jet where it REALLY will not fit.