Recently, my best friend and I got into a polite disagreement about proper customs and courtesies required of flying in a forward cabin, and given that a sample size of n=2, I figured I'd elicit some feedback amongst proper frequent flyers. I'd be very curious to know what others think and their reasoning behind it. I won't say who said what, so I'll just make it a person A and Person B; starting with this text message (we were not both traveling):

A: Lol i Love doing the "excuse me? Whose little backpack is this? Oh, yours, can you please put it under your seat so I can put my suitcase up?"
B: I�ve literally never done that
A: [Dude] argued with me about it but moved it
B: Truthfully, I�d probably tell you no too. I want the legroom and it�s first come, first serve
B: I�m just saying, I�ve never heard anyone ever ask that of someone else and I think I�d be shocked if I did.
A: Really? I have called people out several times. On these crappy small planes there is not even room for each person in first to put 1 bag up. Let alone a bag, backpack, jacket
B: I�d suggest gate checking it. A jacket, sure. But not a bag
A: Nah screw that. Getting on first doesn't entitle you to not follow baggage rules. If there is room by all means throw your stuff up top. Small plane with no storage. Enjoy the better seat and more room but you don't get to take half a bin with a tiny ... backpack
A: I have made people move their backpacks at least 20 times lol
B: The rules are you get to put your stuff where you want if you�re first. I have seen FAs enforce that rule before
A: Oh really?
A: They're always pissed but I logic them out of it and they move their stuff anyway
B: Probably because they don�t want to get into a big argument. But honestly, it does seem a bit rude. Your other option is to have it gate checked for free.
A: Meh, I'm ok with it. If someone asked me to move my backpack on a short flight I wouldn't even bat an eye. Flying is one of those social interactions where it's not worth it to be an ....... to someone to save yourself a few inches of legroom when you're already in first class. That's just false entitlement.
B: I beg to differ. It�s worth whatever he/she places on it. Perhaps that�s why they lined up first and bought a first class seat in the first place. What *you* would do is irrelevant though, and it�s all about how that person values the extra space. If it ever happened to me, I�d probably be caught off guard and sheepishly agree the first time, but I�d probably steam about it for most of the flight and be sure that I knew what to say the next time. I mean, it is awfully �out there� behavior in the forward cabin. Heck, even asking someone to switch seats when they�re not equivalent is something I�m careful not to do
A: Forward cabin is forward cabin though, I have as much right to the overhead as the next guy. Usually half of first is people that got upgraded on most flights.
A: On a lot of flights I am on early so I can get my suitcase up but I never expect to get my backpack up unless there is extra room.
A: I get delta rules may say first come first serve but I feel like it's also "don't be a dick" as a rule.
B: I�d argue that you�re violating that rule here
A: If it was all suitcases I don't care. But a 12 inch tiny flat backpack blocking the whole space makes no sense.

And so on and so forth.... There was some mild editing to make it FT appropriate. So... thoughts?

Cheers

If A ever acted like that towards me and my backpack I would tell him in no uncertain language to F' off. And if it goes on call the FA and have it explained he is out of place. I travel with only a backpack., and my single carry on is entiltled to go in the bin. I am not about to gatecheck my backpack because A thinks his dumb as rollar is more important.

B is also wrong. One can put A SINGLE BAG up overhead (with some defined exceptions). Small F cabins can fill up fairly easily with the space used for equipment/FAs and the bulkhead. Placing 2 or 3 items up top may not be prevented by the FA, but it is wrong. If the bins do not fill up, can always put something up top later.

If you're traveling domestically and don't want to check a bag, that's fine - but that doesn't mean that your bag takes priority over my backpack if it's in the overhead bin first.

Want space in the overhead? Find a way to get in an earlier boarding group. Don't want to have to worry about finding space in an overhead? Check the bag. If there's no room, it'll get gate checked anyways.

If I'm on sooner and I decide I want to put my backpack in the overhead bin (not usually the case, since I've got my personal entertainment devices and whatnot in there, but I definitely will on a short hop on a CRJ where I'm happy to stare out the window for an hour), tough s____.

A is out of line.

Preach, B!

I'm going to split the difference here. I actually agree with A's philosophy; it's a pet peeve of mine when a non-bulkhead first class passenger puts small bags in the overhead bin (although bigger pet peeve that just happened to me last week, the passenger in the window seat put his bag in the center section under the row in front of us, which cut into my legroom). But I would never actually ask someone to move their bag to under the seat in front of them. The most I would ever do is, if I was on a plane with 2-3 or 3-2 configuration and someone put a small bag on the deeper bin side, ask them if they minded if I moved that bag to the shallow bins on the other side. But even that I would typically leave to the flight attendant.

I would say Person A needs to adjust their sense of entitlement and problem solving skills. Perhaps Person A flies a lot more than I do, but I have had my fair share of flights in F, and cannot ever recall an instance of pax having to take bags out of the overhead to put beneath the seat in front. In a regional jet its easy to justify putting both my bags in the overhead since one is only going to fit on the c/d side and my laptop bag will fit in the A side, which I have never seen full. The remainder of flights, pax either A) go a few rows back to find space B) politely ask if you can move an item or two around since the reason for lack of space is inefficient utilization, or C) ask the FA to put the bag in the closet or if they know of empty spots since you were last to board.

So just for the record, this conversation has mostly been had plenty of times before. Most people agree with OP and that if one wants to preserve leg room by not bringing anything other than a small bag and put that in the bin, they are entitled to. A small (and IMO totally incorrect) minority view holds that small items should be placed under seats so that others can use the overhead bin for larger items.

The nuance here is that this is a pax to pax request, when in the past this has been the request of an FA who is trying to make room and save time. This, IMO, is a critical difference. While I don't think any pax should be asked to give up their legroom if they only brought one item on board, a pax making this request of another pax is just not appropriate.

That's not really a feasible thing to self-determine unless you boarded pretty much right near the other person, yes?

Exactly, we just really don't want to be going in the direction of pax policing this for each other. I do think that most pax don't do this (though I know some do).

I thought there might be something worth reading here, but I stopped treading the extended original post by around line three. The issue isn't that important to justify the ink/bytes/pixels/bandwidth needed to slog through it.

Overhead space is a "shared"resource for all ;passengers. Figure out a way to share it with your fellow travelers who are in the same boat as you are. If you want to act like a self-entitled jerk, remember you're not putting one over on the airline. You're only bringing discomfort onto others in exchange for YOUR convenience. If you don't mind being that person, then go ahead. The crew is going to have a place for their baqs regardless. They really couldn't care whose bag goes where. They secretly just laugh at the "I was here first", or "my bag is bigger," or "I have a superior status" arguments that children tend to use on the playground.

I check my 22" bag most of the time, so when that happens my briefcase is going in the overhead bin. Especially in a CR9 or E75.

I've recently had a large tote in the overhead bin, and some dude try to argue with me how I had to put that under the seat in front of me.

Except I had to tell him that my purse was already there and my tote was basically my "large" item.