If you knew anything about Steve Jobs you would know that he didn't have a license plate on his car and he parked in the handicap parking spot. While he was a narcissist, he was also one of the greatest men of our generation.

While there are plenty of suggestions in this topic on how to fix this problem, they only address the effect (zone jumping), and not the cause (unassigned overhead bins). What is needed are overhead bin sections preassigned to each passenger. (A seat for you and a "seat" for your stuff.) If your bag meets the airline size requirements, you are guaranteed a place to stow it. No more rush to be the first onboard.

Since there would be more passengers than bin sections, there would probably have to be a fee associated with it. While this would be a disruptive change to the way fliers have always used overhead bins, it would restore order to an increasingly disorderly process.

Waiting to get ripped on this one.

I won't rip you except to say it's probably not workable. But it would be a good idea.

Here's another. Get rid of overhead bins. End carry-on. Personal item (purse or laptop bag or something like that) only.

Won't work, as there are plenty of larger items (such as supplies for a traveling infant, DSLR cameras and other bulky electronic equipment, fragile and/or valuable items, and medical items such as CPAP machines) which should never be checked and therefore MUST be carried onboard. If the airlines want to force people to check such items because there's no longer an overhead bin to stow them in, then the airlines' handling of checked baggage (particularly in respect to security from theft) is going to have drastically improve.

Agree, the list of things they suggest you don't check can easily fill a rollaboard (valuables, fragile items, electronic items like tablets, phones, computers, medications you may need while you are away [and that would include the pseudo medical like contact lens cleaners and solutions], things needed in flight (book, water, sweater, earphones, etc), things needed by those with special requirements (eg I always take some food as I have been in the situation where my special meal was cancelled).

All of which could fit in a personal item like a purse.

As far as baggage handling, I regularly check a fairly expensive guitar and it's never been scratched or damaged in any fashion. Although there is always a TSA note inside when I open it on arrival.

If they just enforced the carry on bag limits and defined a personal item as something that will fit under the seat, many of these issues would be resolved.

No, it can't. You've clearly never traveled with camera equipment or medical supplies. My father's CPAP machine, all by itself, is larger than a standard personal item.

That is known as luck, and it's a poor thing to rely upon long-term. PLENTY of people have had valuables stolen from their checked bags (especially things the average person is more likely to easily recognize as valuable, like electronic items or jewelry).

Under the current system, it's simply impossible to properly secure checked luggage against theft. That's a big part of the problem when it comes to what's fueling the bin wars (the charge for checked baggage being the other major issue).

This sounds like Southwest to me.

All the GA's should have a big rubber stamp that says "Last Group" and stamp the boarding pass of a cheater. Make them board at the end as the penalty for trying to jump ahead of others. If they have an electronic boarding pass, then stamp their smart phones.

^ apart from the fee charging. If the cabin baggage was limited to acceptable size surely there would be one place per seat. It's only the sea chests that are lugged on by the selfish and thoughtless that take up more room than one carry on that's the "official" size. No need to charge just enforce the rules - as has been said many times here.

Unfortunately, no. The spacing of the bins (each of which can hold 3 legal-sized carryons) is fixed, while the airlines continue to shrink the seat pitch in order to cram a few more rows into coach. That can create a situation where there are more seats in coach than there is bin space for overhead; it's not one bin slot per passenger. And then there's the matter of the bulkhead and exit row seats which generally don't have any under-seat storage, so ALL of their items have to go overhead. As I recall reading, there's only enough overhead bin space for about 75% of the economy class passengers' full-sized carryons (if everyone was carrying a carry-on as well as a personal item).

The airlines created this problem by incentivizing people to carry on while simultaneously reducing the amount of overhead space available on a per-person basis. The way to fix it is to flip the current fee structure so that carryons cost money while one checked bag is free, and to improve in-transit security and timely delivery of checked luggage. But the airlines aren't going to do that: that would cost money, and every bag stuffed in an overhead bin instead of being checked frees up some room for more-lucrative commercial cargo in the hold.

Yup.

Medical devices are an obvious exception. Camera equipment is not.

30 years of flying, 3 million or more actual miles flown, never had anything stolen.

Is theft possible? Yes. That's why the airline has a liability clause and it's why you have personal insurance.

Agree and disagree. I think charging for carryon would dramatically improve the situation. I don't agree that the airlines would resist. Just that it would be too big of a hassle for them to enforce.

Remember some time ago when security scanners had a "gate" and if your carryon didn't fit through the gate you couldn't carry it on? Bring those back and any bag that doesn't fit and you want to carry it on, $50. Again, medical devices are exempt.

I gave you Steve Jobs although others have disagreed.

Two requests/questions for you:

1. Justify the bolded statement. Although I only asked for one example in another post, Steve Jobs is one example of a dick/rule breaker who accomplished a lot. How do you get to most meaningful breakthroughs of human accomplishment from one?
2. Even if we could agree that "most" meaningful breakthroughs are achieved by rule breakers, how does it follow that mediocre or scumbag rule breakers are allowed to break rules or be dicks? Are you trying to say that all rule breakers achieve "meaningful breakthroughs of human accomplishment?"

(As a side note, I'll bet, with that philosophy, you're also one of those sweethearts that brings three bags on board and makes sure they are all in the overhead, because, you know, .... the rest of the flyers.)

It is more ethical to follow the rules for the benefit of the greater good than to ignore them for your own personal gain.

If we agree that it's ok to disregard the rules, then the rules effectively hold no meaning, and everyone goes when he/she wants (which is FIRST in everyone's mind) causing mayhem, and essentially reduces those who get overhead space to the most assertive/strongest/douchiest. How is that fair to, say, the grandma flying coach, who just can't maneuver as fast as the college kid on the way to spring break? Or, to the average flyer who is, in the end, fairly passive and nonconfrontational?

The boarding rules are there for two reasons: First, to make boarding relatively efficient: People are loaded onto the plane, giving priority to sections or to seat column, or to both in an attempt to minimize the amount of step-past maneuvers flyers have to do, each of which essentially doubles the aisle-to-seated time of each passenger, and is a serious impediment to on-time pushback.

Secondly, the boarding order is there to maintain some sort of order in the passengers themselves. Passengers are NOT in the nicest of situations, and putting them in a tight environment with other humans almost always causes the .......s to rise to the top. The boarding order establishes at least some sort of external structure to the process and goes some way toward avoiding potential conflicts of the "hey, I was here first" variety.

A SIDE benefit of the boarding order, if you are aware of it, is to get you in a position for overhead space. *IF* you are aware, and have chosen seats in the appropriate position (or if you were assigned seats in the lucky sections), then your boarding order is higher, and you will have a better chance of getting your crap on the plane. If not, or fate has frowned upon you, you will have to gate check (which, other than the whole stand-in-the-jetbridge thing, is honestly NOT a bad way to go, and is free)

Now, airlines are aware of the intangible value of overhead storage, and have attached priority boarding (and the subsequent near-guarantee of overhead stowage) to frequent fliers' benefits for a long time in an effort to reward loyalty (read: retain business). Like many others here, I spend a lot of time and money on airlines, which affords me that status and the benefits thereof, and I often take it as a personal affront when somebody jumps the boarding order.

Somebody's undercutting my legitimate history of flights and my (frankly distressing) amount of creditcard action in the name of same to claim that intangible benefit that is rightfully mine.