ezefllying

I have newly acquired preboard anxiety, but not on United. I flew BA IAD-LHR-BCN last month in F (J on the short leg). On my BCN leg, I got to the crammed boarding gate at T5 (how did BA build a hub terminal that was too small from the get-go?) about two-thirds of the way through Group 1. I made it to the front, just before the automated boarding-pass reader, when I was held up by a man with a BP issue. After the gate agent pulled him aside, she stopped me and two others next to me from going through the automated gate. She told us that the bins were now full on our A321 and that the three of us would have to check out bags.

Now, I was traveling to a wedding, and that bag contained both my suit and my tux. I'd also just spent months wrangling with another carrier (incidentally, BA cousin Vueling) over the laptop that someone stole from my parent's bag while it was in Vueling's custody. So I wasn't thrilled to have my bag checked. I also wasn't thrilled that it took 10 minutes for the gate agent to tag it, while I stood off to the side next to it. That left me boarding toward the end of the line, with an enormous backlog of people trying to get onto the plane.

Fortunately, the bag did make it, though the bottom was, for whatever reason, drenched. Of course, there were multiple empty bins in Club. But, as a result, I may become one of those people you make fun of, standing around at the front of Group 1 with my carry-on 15 minutes before the agent even starts preboarding.

fumje

Are people conflating preboarding with general boarding? Anxiety about the latter (hence lining up in the early groups) makes sense, but I still don't understand about the former (barreling over wheelchair pax, fighting with other preboarders).

Anyway, I suppose further discussion of that is going off topic. Back to the salacious DYKWIA stories please.

ExplorerWannabe

I got an upgrade on my most recent flight DEN-FRA. I think I was 3A, boarded toward the head of group 1 only to find my overheads completely full. The lady in 3D had apparently used both overheads over my seat as preferable to the ones over her seat. That left me putting my carry-on over 4D and inconveniencing that poor woman every time I wanted something out of my bag (but at least I didn't have to trot my carry-down to row 12 or something). I later discovered when we landed that she took my overheads because her daughter in 2D had stuffed HER overheads with her 2 carry-ons and she had done that because United chose to put all the spare bedding in the overhead above 2D.

physioprof

Totally off-topic, but I was in LHR T5 for the first time last week for LHR-MAD, and that terminal is the most miserable, unpleasant, sensory-overload airport experience I have ever had in my life...

vicontt

And that's what causing lion share of gate conondrums. If FA enforced 'bag on your row' policy a lot of gate drama would cease to exist.

jsloan

The overheads are not big enough to accommodate a "bag on your row" policy.

vicontt

Well, than people should be allowed as much carrion as possible to accomodate. Why is this controversial?

JAXPax

I bit my tongue flying out of BNA last month when person in row 1 made a stink because they had to put their bag over row 2 (but I have a 40 minute connection!). I was in row 2 and my seatmate told her she would personally ensure she had her bag back before the door even opened on landing. I wanted to say that if she didn't have 4 items to stow, that might also help. To be fair half the front bin too was taken by emergency equipment. At least it wasn't crew bags.

Years ago I worked for AirTran in management. We had a prohibition against flight crew putting their bags anywhere in Business Class (except for one small tote that had their required emergency items, if there wasn't room in the "spare" galley cart). They were to evenly distribute their roller bags throughout the airplane. There were though several instances of bag theft, whether on purpose or innocently enough (I remember following someone into the men's room who was in shorts and a t-shirt towing a bag with a crew tag asking if it was theirs - it wasn't... and we didn't allow non-revs to wear shorts or a shirt without collar unless they were under 12 years old). The company got Coca-Cola to sponsor (pay for) giving every flight attendant what amounted to a bicycle chain/lock to secure their bag to the overheads. The union wasn't too happy about that as they didn't think of any solution other than getting to put bags in the front/back, but it solved the issue.

zymm

I've only seen it once or twice on UA, but sometimes the overhead space above rows 1 and 2 will be full of crew baggage and/or items like first aid kits or the props for the safety demo. Much more common on intra-EU flights though.

canadiancow

Wow, you just came up with the perfect solution

bocastephen

probably the smell would become bothersome for sure.

JAXPax

Wasn't that a George Carlin line?

vicontt

Aren't the planes just real big birds?

flyingron

Yes. I knew I got that wrong the moment I pushed send, but decided it wasn't worth going back to fix.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Because carrion has a propensity to stink.