United Fails To Check Boarding Passes For Gate Checked Bags At ERI
Oct 6, 2017 | 4:05 pm
#16
Suspended
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: DCA
Programs: UA US CO AA DL FL
Posts: 50,261
ERI is a really small airport. United has such a small gate that pax spill out into the the common terminal area.
Management apparently values on-time push over all else. Here is what I saw.
Gate agent walks from gate into common terminal area. "Are you flying to Chicago? Your bag is too big, you have to gate check." Applies gate check tag, hands over receipt, and confiscates the bag without asking to see a boarding pass to see if this passenger is even flying to Chicago.
1. These are bags that have been through security, nonetheless it seems haphazard to stow bags from pax in a common area with no boarding pass check.
2. Pax who booked group 5 and are supposed to pay for checked bags get that free, a good thing I suppose.
3. Speed trumps customer service, he never once asked "Do you have any meds, keys, or valuables you need to remove?"
I'm prompted to write because this was so aggressive. He literally ambushed one pax, grabbed her bag and had it outside in 30 seconds with only, "it's too big, claim it on the jetway in Chicago." And it was a bag that she could have stowed if she'd made it onto the plane, even this EMB145.
And the pat answer to "I flew with this bag in the overhead of this same plane to get here" is "if you try to carry that on the flight attendant will deny you boarding."
Management apparently values on-time push over all else. Here is what I saw.
Gate agent walks from gate into common terminal area. "Are you flying to Chicago? Your bag is too big, you have to gate check." Applies gate check tag, hands over receipt, and confiscates the bag without asking to see a boarding pass to see if this passenger is even flying to Chicago.
1. These are bags that have been through security, nonetheless it seems haphazard to stow bags from pax in a common area with no boarding pass check.
2. Pax who booked group 5 and are supposed to pay for checked bags get that free, a good thing I suppose.
3. Speed trumps customer service, he never once asked "Do you have any meds, keys, or valuables you need to remove?"
I'm prompted to write because this was so aggressive. He literally ambushed one pax, grabbed her bag and had it outside in 30 seconds with only, "it's too big, claim it on the jetway in Chicago." And it was a bag that she could have stowed if she'd made it onto the plane, even this EMB145.
And the pat answer to "I flew with this bag in the overhead of this same plane to get here" is "if you try to carry that on the flight attendant will deny you boarding."
So long as the bag has been through the checkpoint, it doesn't matter. What happened to you happens at many stations around the country, some much larger than ERI.
The reason that this is a non-issue is that even if you checked the bag with a real tag at the counter and then did not board the flight, presuming a domestic flight, UA would not pull the bag.
