Originally Posted by 1P

One complicating factor for "personal space" items is that those who sit in bulkhead seats have to park their personal items in the overheads. I've often thought that airlines might well consider having designated space for bulkhead pax in the overheads at the front of each cabin. It would solve the problem of gate lice at a stroke.

Originally Posted by fastair

Exceptions can be good, but if the poster says he travels to conferences (likely others go to the same conferences) and many people are traveling with these, then, if they aren't sitting together, and don't coordinate their tubes, it can have the same impact. If they boarded together and coordinated their tubes, they could monopolize 1 bin and get a massive number of tubes in a single bin, but individually placing 8-10 tubes would likely not be as efficient.

Originally Posted by jpezaris

In a previous, related thread I made the following argument which I am making here again, on the outside chance that UA Insider (or someone similar) reads through this thread.

I belong to a scientific society that has an annual conference with about 30,000 attendees, held in the US. A significant fraction of these attendees carry poster tubes with them, mostly students and post-docs. Our society is far from the largest, and I have yet to encounter a cabin crew that is not familiar with the needs of storing a poster tube on board, leading me to suspect that a non-trivial amount of UA's business must be from scientists and researchers attending conferences. I see someone carrying a poster tube on about half of my flights, but perhaps I'm more aware of such items than most people.

These poster tubes routinely fit ON TOP of compliant bags and don't prevent anyone from bringing their compliant luggage on board. They also routinely fit in the front closet with whatever more outrageous non-compliant stuff people bring like wedding dresses, guitars, etc.

Poster tubes can't be checked -- being damaged, delayed or lost would be disastrous to the career of the owner. But the issue countering the drumbeat I'm hearing of "if you packed responsibly and played by the rules, you wouldn't have a problem," is that despite occupying about as much volume as a handbag, poster tubes are not sizer-compliant.

So, I'd like to hear a proposal that includes handling exceptions in a reasonable way, rather than the zero-tolerance stance being espoused here.

Originally Posted by jpezaris

They also routinely fit in the front closet with whatever more outrageous non-compliant stuff people bring like wedding dresses, guitars, etc.

Poster tubes can't be checked -- being damaged, delayed or lost would be disastrous to the career of the owner. But the issue countering the drumbeat I'm hearing of "if you packed responsibly and played by the rules, you wouldn't have a problem," is that despite occupying about as much volume as a handbag, poster tubes are not sizer-compliant.

So, I'd like to hear a proposal that includes handling exceptions in a reasonable way, rather than the zero-tolerance stance being espoused here.

Originally Posted by Tchiowa

Another alternative is FedEx. Another alternative is UPS store and print your posters on site when you arrive. You have lots of options.

Originally Posted by 1P

I've often thought that airlines might well consider having designated space for bulkhead pax in the overheads at the front of each cabin. It would solve the problem of gate lice at a stroke.