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Comment by andy99 | Hacker News Reader

The worst part is that they forced her to gate-check this bag that would have fit in the overhead. I have seen them get really aggressive with this recently, including watching a gate agent approach an old couple who needed pre-boarding assistance and lie to them that their standard roller bag wouldn't fit on the plane and would need to be gate checked.

There was an article recently about Ryanair employees getting commissions when they force someone to check their carry-on, I suspect AC is doing the same thing.

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Is gate checking a bad thing to most people?

I used to fly a ton, and preferred to gate check my bag. Didn't have to find or fight over overhead space, and I don't remember ever waiting more than a few minutes at the gate. Around half the time it was already waiting for me by the time I actually got off the plane. It almost felt like a valet service rather than a burden.

Gate check in this context means you pick it up at the baggage carousel (and risk them losing it). If it's just the cart that comes out when you deplane (a) your bag really won't fit on board and (b) no it's not a big deal.

Ah, that makes sense, it doesn't actually mention gate checking in the article. It sounds like they just asked her to check it as regular luggage prior, then.

On every flight I've taken, gate checking implies the latter, that it will be on the cart or floor of the jetbridge when deplaning.

On every flight I've been on, gate checking your carryon means you have to pick it up at the luggage carousel. What part of the world are you in?

The US. It's possible it's changed recently, as I've not flown in probably 5 or so years. But I've never had that happen to me, and obviously wouldn't ever volunteer each time if that were the case.

I know what you mean, but I haven't seen that happen in years, and I fly both big and small / regional jets. It is almost always "we'll check it through all the way to your destination."

My experience is that if it is a small regional jet like an ERJ, it will be delivered at the jet bridge. If it's a 737, it's going to baggage claim.

Gate checking and forced gate checking are very, very different things.

You lose access to your bag and people can put knives in it or take steal from it

I volunteered once for air Canada, they delayed my bag by 2 hours after landing. Never again.

FWIW I always travel with soft backpacks instead of hard-shell roller bags. I've never gotten the "you should gate check that". Soft bags fit much better in the overhead and can be squeezed to make room, so the airline employees will never pick the soft backpack guy for gate check.

What is the incentive for the airline to do this? Unless they are charging a fee for gate checking, which I've never heard of, this just seems like more work for the airline?

In my experience they are only aggressive during really full flights where it is a legit concern not everything will fit (largely because they started charging an arm and a leg for checked bags, so nobody does that anymore)

Plane type matters too. Some planes are built without appropriate overhead space, I guess because we never used to take as many laptops/electronics? The newest planes from Boeing and Airbus seem much better for this. As in you can literally see claims of "60% more overhead space per passenger" on the newest planes and I've had no issue even on full flights with airlines that use newer planes.

Yes, I boarded a full flight that ran out of overhead bin space and people walking up and down aisles with suitcases then exiting off the plane and then coming back on was an absolute shitshow.

I know in the case of some airlines, it's because their luggage fare structure encourages people to use carry on rather than checked luggage, which results in the overhead space being oversubscribed. Even if each bag technically fits within the carry on requirements, there's not space for all of them.

Also as an intermediate step before gate checking bags, they usually make people take backpacks etc. out of the overhead because they _can_ fit in the under seat area, even if you didn't bring any other carry on items, which also disincentivises packing light - really you want to use a hard carry on that _has_ to go in the overhead to ensure that it goes in the overhead rather than be forced to give up some of your already limited legroom.

Agree. It's a pain completely self inflicted by the airline industry. Same as always, benefits are experienced by some (shareholders) and the pain by many (passengers, employees).

> charging a fee for gate checking, which I've never heard of

You have lived a very sheltered life my friend.

So there is this thing that "other" people have to do when they need to get somewhere. Its like when you give your friends a ride on your plane, but you dont know them and none of you own the plane. Every person pays a bit to fly from point a to point b. Its known as commercial air travel, and it is as horrible as it sounds.

If you have an example of an airline that charges a fee when they gate check your bag, I'd be interested in hearing about it. That specifically is what I haven't heard of.

I flew on a Westjet flight a few days ago, where they charged a fee for gate checking.

Did they force you to gate check your bag, and then charged you a fee for it? That's what seems to be claimed here. I'm also pretty sure it'd be a violation of the carrier contract.

If it is within your allowence, but there "isnt enough space in the cabin" there will be no fee. If you turn up with 3 bags, bags that dont fit, or overweight bags they can and will charge you as a checked bag + a handling fee for the inconvenience.

You fly jets long enough, something like this happens.

Easyjet [0] - £48 Fee for any non-purchased bag (per item) brought to the departure gate that is over a customer’s small cabin bag allowance which is a maximum size of 45 x 36 x 20 cm or any bags outside of standard entitlements. The bag will be placed in the hold.

United Airlines [1]: Basic Economy tickets only include one personal item. They do not include carry-on bags. If you decide to travel with a carry-on bag, you must check it in the airport lobby for a fee starting at $35. If you bring a carry-on bag to the gate that won’t fit under the seat, you need to pay a $65 fee to check it.

As for others ... the gate check fee for Spirit Airlines' carry-on bags is typically around $99 when charged at the gate, Ryanair charges typically around €55-€60 for items deemed too large for carry-on at the gate etc.

[0] https://www.easyjet.com/en/help-centre/policy-terms-and-cond... [1] https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/travel/inflight/basic-econo...

It's one thing to charge for bags that are gate checked because you knew in advance you couldn't bring the bag.

However, another thing that happens is you pay for (or the ticket includes) a carry on bag but because the airline has insufficient carry on space to allow all passengers to bring a carry on, they collect bags at the gate to be checked as cabin bags instead (even if you hadn't paid for a cabin bag).

It's the latter that would be surprising to see airlines charge for, as it's a solution to a problem for the airline that the airline created itself by overselling the carry on space.

Faster onloading and offloading time reduces gate time, which can easily snowball if you have other delays.

I could see Ryan Air charging for gate check even when it's not your choice and the bag is of appropriate carry-on size. That's their niche, sell you a cheap ticket then charge you for everything else they can along the way.

In my experience generally it's a combination of oversold flights and increased seat counts. Seat width and legroom length changes allow more seats to get crammed into the plane. You have more people, but the amount of overhead bin space doesn't change with it. With oversold flights it's very common for nearly all seats to be occupied.

The net result is the overhead bins almost always fill up before everyone has boarded, at which point they start gate checking everyone's carry-on bags. When this has happened to me on major carriers, I have not been charged. It's still annoying. Particularly when I've packed light to fit everything in a carry-on and avoid checked baggage altogether.

Checked bag fees have gone up and become pretty outrageous as ticket prices (airline and route dependent) are already high. Passengers have figured out that gate checking a bag is free so more people showed up with a carry-on and counted on gate checking. Then they realized that it's faster if you don't gate check because you can just grab your bag and leave the airport. Now, more and more people are showing up with bags they don't want to check, but the overhead bins are not able to store a full-sized carry-on bag for every passenger.

If people don't gate check enough bags, the flight gets delayed while people spend 20 minutes trying to fit their 10" wide bag into whatever 6" wide slots they can find, or you get the assholes that start pulling other people's bags down (I've had to stop a few people from doing this to my own bags) to make room for theirs. Finally the bags get gate checked anyways.

The aggressive push to get people to gate check is to prevent that last part, the delays. The airline makes no money on it (at least the non-budget carriers), but they lose money if flights are delayed and cascade into potential cancellations or delayed enough to trigger some kind of credit, reimbursement, or travel insurance coverage.

If I were in charge people would have to gate check anything larger than a laptop bag. Overhead luggage makes deplaning take probably 10-20x as long and that can be a safety hazard in an emergency. That's an extra 30~60 minutes total completely wasted even when there isn't one.

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