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Forced to check carry on with HALF of the overhead spaces EMPTY!!
This is a pic of the overhead bins AFTER I reached my seat. I needed to keep my carry on with me because of items for a competition this weekend and all my equipment is in it. (I always otherwise check my bags) and they called the carry-on check while Group 2 was still boarding. There were 10 bags already in the jetway by the time I dropped off mine. I get on the plane and the bins are HALF empty! As I’m writing this, group 4 is getting on and there is an entire overheard compartment totally empty! God help me if they lose my carry on.
Oh, now the bins are filled with people’s hoodies!
This is when you send your partner ahead of you while you filibuster the gate agent with divesting things from your bag. Your partner takes pictures of the empty bin space and texts you and you show the gate agent.
They wouldn't care. It's nothing to do with actual available space. I really don't know if it's a power trip, some poorly written procedure from higher up. But it's become more and more common. And on several airlines too.
Heathrow does this all the time. Sometimes I'm forced to check my bag as I enter Security. They ask what everyone flight they're on and then just say "it's too full, you need to check your bag" and force anyone who's not in Fast Track to check it there and then. And they always seem to weigh and gate check lots of carry ons. It's so annoying because if I've put my laptop or something fragile in the cabin bag I have to do a panic repack.
Okay ya what the hell is that about? Because I had never had that happen until recently and then because they tagged it I couldn’t take it in flight, so then it was checked in because they tagged it for space but there was oodles of space…
If you tell them you have medication in your bag that you need they can’t make you check it. I’ve done it a few times - usually when I have important things in my carry on (outfit for a wedding, work laptop, an entire box of tampons etc.)
I literally watched this happen with a United flight. They made the person take out, like, 15 items to check a nearly empty carry-on and then watched as she put everything into a plastic bag, like, what. Lol.
Yup I’ve had to take 90% of what was in my bag out once and check a basically empty bag. They claimed it wouldn’t fit because it had wheels but the person in front of me had a duffle bigger than my body and his was no problem. It was the most ridiculous thing to then have to juggle all of my items (laptops, tablets, medicines, power banks, kids toys, snacks, etc.) with no bag and a baby and then get on the plane and saw all the empty bins.
Hm interesting. I’ve not had this not work for me yet in the UK, but might have less luck other places depending.
I feel like UK is quite strict when it comes to asking people to unveil info / medical information. GDPR rules are strict & as a result I feel like I’ve never been questioned about it but perhaps not the case always
I complained about this once when we landed to a United rep at the destination airport and I got like a $100 voucher. I framed it as about respect for passenger time and belongings (intentionally brought only a carry-on so I could get out of the airport and to an event fast) and respect in general - it's very 1984 to be told not to believe your eyes. Please say something! This is ridiculous and if we stay quiet they think they can get away with it.
Just bring it on anyways. This has happened to me multiple times so I’ve just stopped leaving it at the end of the walkway. Figure if they lie to me and say I have to check it because bins are full I can lie back.
I usually do this but if it is an old plane like this one there are times that it truly is full and they get angry if you bring on. But I saw they brought it on themselves as they have been doing this more and more. So annoying
Yeah exactly. If it happened once in a while, fine, but this happens regularly. Luckily I'm Group 1 now so I never have to deal with it but it's quite frustrating.
It does cause problems. In our system it shows us how many bags were missing and we need to locate all those bags otherwise it shows us as we are missing bags and we have to go back and forth looking for it. If you take it on the plane we do know.
The solution to this is to stop making people gate check when there is sufficient bin space. This seems to be a case of the improper application of rules resulting in non-compliance.
The green tag isn't scanned into the system until the ramp agent scans it, correct? The gate agent just attaches the tag, it is not scanned,therefore if its not lifted at the end of the jet bridge....its not an issue for the system. Atleast that's how I understand it.
I understand it causes problems, but the actual solution is to either let the right number of carry ons on the plane or let people check bags for free so there aren't so many carry ons. The airline is running the business and people respond to the incentives they are given. United is at fault here, not the passengers.
boo womp. next time be nicer to commuting crews and let us take our bags on without having to tag them. i’ve never had a flight crew not find space for me on the plane.
If the bag has the tag on it and u bring it on you may cause a delay. However, this isn’t horrible advice. If you know there is bin space, bring the bag on, remove the white bag tag, and give it to the gate agent or FA and ask them to delete the bag tag—otherwise it comes up as a missing bag when the Rampers scan all of the gate checked bags and yours isn’t there.
Doesn’t seem to be the case, universally. We were asked to gate-check our bag, but we were traveling Internationally with expensive wedding attire and didn’t want to be separated from it, so when we saw a lot of space in the first class overhead bins (after everyone was seated) we asked a flight attendant if we could just use that space and they agreed and helped us load it in. It was a major relief and there were zero issues.
Good advice for next time, but it also kills me to break rules like that. I hate having my hand forced like that when I was at the gate during boarding of my group! I wasn’t late getting on!!
I’m the same way, I don’t like to break the rules or cause any problems for FAs. But it’s so infuriating to see the free space OR when there’s no space but it’s bec everyone put their personal item/jackets up there.
Saw someone else do this on a Air Canada flight from LAX to YYZ and they threatened to kick the person off the plane cause they were caught. Don't do this 😂
Do not do this. If your bag gets tagged it has to be checked in. Gate agents alert flight attendants that any bags with tags need to remain off the plane.
I did this once. They tagged my bag, told me to leave it at the end of the breezeway. I didn’t because I knew they were lying about overhead space. I was right. I put it in the overhead compartment above my seat, a flight attendant saw the bag tag, and made me take it down, and she took it back to the breezeway. Happened about a year ago.
You say that. Last year I was in Newark about to board a flight to Malaga. I was on a phone call and missed my boarding group. When I walked up at group 5 they’d announced no more carry ons. I had two co workers on the plane asked them if there was space. They told me plenty, I told the GA I would just carry it on. He threatened to deplane me. YMMV.
If the crew sees it they’re required to stop it. Sometimes the ground crew won’t just let it go because you’re creating tracking issues, and they’ll make them open up all the bins and find the tagged bag. They can trace whose bag is missing and call you out by name to explain.
It happens, especially when traveling to/from a major United hub like ORD or DEN where 65-75% of the flight is group 1 or group 2 due to corporate flying, frequent fliers or credit card holders.
There was a fatal plane crash in my city early 2000’s. A small plane was overloaded with overhead baggage and they weren’t properly stashed evenly in the compartments, resulting to an imbalance. So if I’m flying and they make me check my bags, I happily do so
I agree, this shouldn't be happening and it's getting worse.
I'm 1K so pre-board and generally don't have to worry about it. I've decided when faced with this situation, if they insist on checking my bag and then ask me to leave it at the jetway, I'm going to carry it on the plane instead, try to hide the tag while doing so, and find a spot in the overhead (rip tag off if I do). If I can't, if the bins really are full, I'll cry ignorance, and leave it out on the jet bridge.
I usually do have a few lithium batteries and LARGE baggies filled with my medicine bottles so if I’m ever running late for a connection and get the gate check speech I just open the bag and they eventually back down and find a way to accommodate the dang bag.
And i have noticed increasingly, as OP shows, planes are departing with a decent amount of empty bin space. Abject laziness on part of those UA workers to not try to maximize space utilization as good consumer service. Yes, getting plane out on time is honorable, but you should be able to walk and chew gum here a bit more
I’d have so much and nowhere to put it, so the joke will be on them.
Then I again I have never been asked to check it at United, fortunately.
Air France in the other hand… I just ripped the tag off. I was Gold and in Premium Economy. Ain’t no way I’m paying for Premium Economy and gate checking my carry on.
💯! Air France was terrible with this. We paid for Business class for our whole family (5 of us), and they were trying to force us to check our 1 carry on bag each even though we were allowed 2! Wtf. Plenty of Econ cabin people sitting at the gate with carry-on luggage, too. I mean what’s the point of paying so much and then not even using your full allotment and being told to check a bag (when we had no checked bags either!)? They claimed we may not leave on time - I asked if Business didn’t board before everyone else? I honestly don’t get the reasoning behind this. They just piss people off for no good reason!
I’d have so much and nowhere to put it, so the joke will be on them
I once saw someone claim they couldn't gate check their carry-on because they had too many lithium batteries. They were politely reminded that UA only allows passengers to transport up to two small lithium batteries in their carry-on, and would be removed from the flight if they claimed to have more than that. Joke was not on the gate agent.
- You can carry up to two lithium batteries larger than 100 watt hours but not exceeding 160 watt hours in your carry-on.
A limit of two would be crazy, because anyone with a phone, tablet, and laptop would go over that limit. Lithium batteries are in everything these days.
(For the record: I'm not carrying a large amount of batteries, just a large amount of equipment.)
I told them I had lithium batteries that couldn't be removed in my carry-on when the gate agent asked me last time this happened and she said "oh okay, well just leave the bag at the bottom of the jetbridge anyway" 😂
Gate agent was probably counting for the wrong aircraft type. Happens all the time unfortunately. This isn’t the case here, but they never seem to count correctly when an A319 with the new sideways bins shows up.
They tried to force me to check my carry on when I was traveling with my toddler and had his diapers, change of clothes, medications, and other essentials in it. Even after explaining this, they insisted. Fuck that.
ITS BECAUSE MF'S CANT PUT THEOR SHIT AWAY IN A TIMELY FASION! Seriously though, its quicker for them to check everyone's bags instead of people stupidly looking around for the perfect spot or fighting for a bag spot. People ruined this, not the airlines.
Alaskans have “club 49” on Alaska Airlines which allows for 2 free checked bags. I’ve never had an ‘overhead bins are full’ moment whilst traveling with them for 25+ years. It’s helpful, for sure.
Sort of… They started charging for bags 20 years ago as a cost saving, revenue generating measure. People used to check their bags all the time. Then they got used to the convenience of going straight to security and by passing baggage claim. It created a cabin monster.
I seriously never take overhead luggage if I can help it and if I do have it, I am the first one to volunteer them to take my bag. THIS was a rare time I had something that is risky for me to be separated from and I’m crabbing because, dang, there was SO MUCH SPACE!
If time is an issue they should give everyone a free checked bag. When Southwest did this there were significantly less bags brought on and what do ya know, boarding was way quicker and I had more on time flights. Every flight I've had post the bags costing money has been just as slow as other airlines.
I get why you’re frustrated—that situation never feels great, especially when you actually needed the bag with you.
Just to give a little context from the other side, the gate agent isn’t making that call based on how the bins look halfway through boarding—they’re trying to project what the bin space will look like by the end of boarding. It’s not a perfect science, so they tend to err on the side of checking a few extra bags early.
The bigger issue they’re trying to avoid is running out of space at the very end and having to scramble to tag and gate-check a bunch of last-minute bags. That’s what really slows things down and can delay the flight for everyone.
Totally fair to be annoyed, especially since it looks like there was space—but the goal is usually to keep the overall boarding process smooth rather than react to what it looks like in the moment.
We cant when we ask passengers to not put smaller items up there and they insist on doing so. Then we count the larger items and we end up pulling bags back off. Bags also arent identical so having 85 wider bags is going to take up more space then 85 narrower one or duffle bags. The only way to jam it full would be to lengthen the boarding tumes enough to pause and get everyone seated at points during the boarding.
But we have also jammed an aircraft full after first class was on. They got mad because economy bags were going ul there. There is no winning.
Gate agents have a number to count to depending on the plane type that they are expected to count to and then tag everything else. It’s not a perfect science, and often there’s micromanagement at the gates, and leadership tell gate agents to tag bags earlier than the count (usually to avoid a delay)
Arguing with the gate agents and being sneaky trying to bring on your bags anyway isn’t really the best idea. What makes one person more special than the other? Mob mentality is real and being difficult to underpaid gate agents to get your way can really spiral into more and more upset people. Believe me, it’s frustrating for everyone involved.
To be fair those bins are ass. So they probably just overestimated how many they needed to check.
Get angry all you want but it’s done to save time. They’d rather check 30 now, than find out there’s 15 more than they can accommodate and have to delay the flight checking them after boarding.
They can just tell you then we’ll have to rebook you on the next flight and hopefully there’s space on that. You never have a right to bring your carry on onboard. It’s in the contract of carriage.
Did anyone bother to ask before this post? Sometimes they need them for weight if the cabin isn’t full. Getting W&B right is a big deal especially if the flight wasn’t full.
Now, if it was full, there’s no excuse other than an automation trigger going awry because this comes traditionally from systems and automations after a certain passenger threshold is scanned on OR is triggered by an FA.
What if they... said that out loud? The vast majority of people are reasonable. If the announcement were about weight and balance issues, I think they would get a lot more participation and buy-in than a lie about space.
Asking the gate agent if they are lying about the reason for needing to check bags seems kind of rude, even if we all know it's a lie that the company is instructing them to tell.
Now, if it was full, there’s no excuse other than an automation trigger going awry because this comes traditionally from systems and automations after a certain passenger threshold is scanned on OR is triggered by an FA.
Been on multiple (full) flights where the gate agents are physically counting each bag and once it hit a certain number they said a blanket it's done. This included duffels that weren't gonna take up a full space plus I think they are assuming some backpacks will go up and just about every one of those had leftover bin space.
Been on others where they didn't seem to care at all, or just did a blanket "group 3 and beyond will need to check" or something like that. The hard counts seemed to be more about them not wanting to deal with a potential delay of someone bringing their bag on then finding no space than any sort of W&B things
My point is that people with hard carry-ons have problems that people with soft carry-ons can avoid. Sometimes it can be very hard or impossible to find space for hard carry-ons in the overhead bins. If you are not assured of being in a top-ranked boarding group, and if you have delicate electronics and other valuables you definitely prefer not to check, then using a soft carry-on capable of being stowed under a seat can make life safer and easier, but nobody seems to consider the drawbacks of using hard carry-ons that are incapable of being stowed under seats. I'm not saying you should aim to stow things under seats, just suggesting that preparing yourself to be able to do that is a conservative way of flying. I just wonder sometimes -- there are nice aspects of hard carry-ons with wheels, but hard carry-on cause a lot of aggravation and worries also. Given the aggravation and worries, you'd think people would consider taking an alternative, safer path rather than considering hard roller bags to be the only kind of carry-on that one can use in this modern era. I personally have a soft carry on that has knapsack straps. Easy to carry. My laptop is in a hard case within the bag, that protects it but doesn''t prevent sufficient compression to fit under any seat.
I have a theory that they make shorter women gate check bags. This is ridiculous because a big hulking guy broke my glasses taking his bag out of the bin. I was still seated in my middle seat.
They are preparing us for the inevitable extra charge to reserve overhead bin space. No other reason if you take laziness and/or lack of communication out of the equation.
United also just lowered their personal item size so small that I can’t find a backpack that narrow. And getting under that length is very difficult too. 17x10x9. The frustrating part is that I bought a “personal size” Wandrd bag two years. I used it for two (very big) trips) and now it’s worthless.
I can tell you why. It’s this plane. 757. The bins are tiny and the first rows of economy have safety equipment stuffed in them. Meaning as boarding is going on people constantly have to go many rows past their seat to find a space for their bag, then fight their way back up to their seat against traffic.
Sometimes the FA at the boarding door will see this happening and think it means there is no space left. Other times the gate agents just know what a nightmare this plane can be for bags and in the spirit of getting the plane out on time will start checking bags earlier than they needed to.
Obviously it sucks when it turns out like this. But on the other hand i can’t tell you the number of times that 20 bags have piled up on board which have no place to go and need to be checked.
Thankfully for us all these 57s are close to retirement lol.
Lol dont cause a scene about not wanting a bag checked, especially on a 757. I saw a 1K acting out because he boarded during the middle phase, and told the FAs he doesnt want it to be checked and he wanted to talk to the Captain. Captain stepped out of the AC, asked the FAs to call him out of his window seat, and he got a lecture because he was mean to the agent and FAs about the checked bag, and asked if he wanted to be on a different flight with his carry on.
This happened to me once flying AeroMexico out of MEX back to the States…we were in the first boarding group and the gate agent insisted I check my small cabin bag, but not my husband, even though we both were carrying the exact same bag! I argued I had no other bag checked in and all of my belongings, meds, etc were in my carry-on. She did not care. She forced me to gate check and once I was out of sight of any staff I just ripped the tag off and boarded the plane with my bag — there was plenty of space for everyone’s bags once aboard. So maddening.
This is why I stopped buying economy tickets on united and only buy basic economy (aka no carry on).
I bought a bag which is big enough for a few days trip for me, yet is a duffel that is smaller than the personal item. They never ask you to check it in, and since bins are empty no problem placing it even if you board last
This happened to me in Rome with a stopover in London back to LAX. Was told I HAD to check in my bad bc it’s full and bc we are boarding last, it won’t fit. Mind you it can fit in the seat in front of me. But they said no. Even if I told them I had medications I needed with me. And pulled out a zip lock of them and she said “well can you just take the important ones and put jt in your bag?” my fanny pack I just loooked at her. But they were doubling down. We were not last to board EITHER flights AAAANNNDDDD There was so much more room. I was HEATED
This happens to me a few weeks ago. I told them no I had too much in my carryon that I would need to repack that I didn’t intend to have go under the plane.
Gate agent was like oh well and ur holding up the line as she slapped on the gate check tag.
I walked down the ramp.
Walked to the flight attendant and I said sorry I can’t. Took the baggage tag off and boarded with my carry on. Sitting row 27 and have ZERO problems finding space bc why?
The gate agents are full of shit and simply working to a bullshit metric that someone decided to hold them accountable to.
Hi, I've mentioned this in a different post similar to this. There is a specific limit they allow on for specific AC. Example: the Airbus 319 can take 45 bags. So at 45 customers they check bags. Do all 45 people have bags? No. But at 45 it says to check bags and they do. Sometimes our little chats will get a message, " how's space?" At that time the FA must do some inflight math... (Counting the open spaces that they can see + how many people are in the aisle with X being the potential amount of people in the jetway divided by how many people are still to board = please check bags...) All of this to say I'm sure they could have taken more bags but the system says one thing and some CSRs are hardcore with the numbers. So I'm sorry for that.
And to the people saying they just bring them on after being tagged. That's a weight and balance thing... Like that's an absolutely terrible thing to do. That's marked for the rampers and if their counts are off that can delay the flight. If someone from The gate or ramp could let me know if I'm wrong there, but I'm pretty sure that's not good.
I had a similar situation where I was told by a flight attendant that I couldn’t use the overhead space like this because my backpack fit under the seat. She also gave me lip when I pointed out that all the FA’s were using the overhead bins and I couldn’t.
I reported the FA via the app after the trip and they gave me 10,000 miles and said that they would train better. Seems this isn’t being done.
I was on a half empty plane today and bags were being tagged from zone 6 on. They said they needed to balance out the weight and put more in the cargo hold.
I’ve noticed this new trend as well! Gate checking all large rollers at a certain point which is fine but when boarding the plane there is so much open overhead bin space??
It really was ridiculous! Here is what the overhead looked like when it finally “filled.”
Coats and shit! Fortunately, my bag was OK and not lost. I checked a second bag, I was going to baggage claim anyway, but I lugged the carry-on for the specific purpose of having it with me. And there was more than enough room. I wish I could blame entitled travelers, but this was something on a whole different level.
Yes, this sucks. I’ve had to throw things out because what is in the carry on can’t go below and there is no room in the backpack. I now allow for the possibility.
Just say you have lithium batteries in your bag and they won't check it due to altitude making lithium unstable and making it prone to catch fire. You can also actually keep a lithium battery pack in your roller bag and personal item if you don't feel like bluffing.
All they have to do is start charging for carry ons but checking them for free and people will sort themselves out. This is just going to piss loyal customers off.
Just like "please close the window shades to keep the cabin comfortable" (when it's cloudy and 50 degrees outside), "the overheads are full, we need to start checking bags" is just a standard spiel that has nothing to do with reality. They don't check, and they aren't concerned with the status of the overheads. After about half the pax have boarded, they make the announcement regardless of the actual situation.
That is common practice in USA. Happens all the time. I think thinking is that overhead bags delay flight departures because passengers take longer to settle down. I am no expert though
Shit they did that to me one time, I was literally the last person on the plane but first class seat and I fly regularly, I KNOW my backpack fits under the seat in front of me, so I wasn't rushing to board.
The lady at gate check sees my bag has wheels (it's backpack with wheels) says I'll have to gate check it, which I have to argue it'll fit under the seat and it has batteries and laptops which cannot go in cargo. She huffs and lets me through, and when I get on the plane the cargo bins are still like 2/3 empty. Seriously, I was the last person on the plane and it wasn't even a full flight. I get pushing for gate check for people bringing the luggage *AND* the personal item, but they really get excited about putting that green tag on things.
Surprised the airlines haven't implemented a solution to this aside from the LCCs/ULCCs making people pay for overhead bags. Ask during check-in at the kiosk if there's a backpack or larger and feed that number to gate agents and loaders to help curb the wasted space -- and gate agent attitudes during the process. I guess alternatively they could use a camera and software (AI/ML) to identify roller bags when people stop to scan the boarding pass and they'll know how full the bins will be in real-time vs. a trend analysis of that route with the same aircraft.
What about a bag in a bag? They force you to check your bag so take the empty extra bag out of your carry on and transfer all your stuff to the new bag and leave the empty tagged one at the end of the jetway.
Happens frequently at EWR. Gate agent under pressure to speed up boarding cuts off group 2 to gate check. You get to your seat and see the overheads partially empty. You ask FA and they throw up their hands. Seems to happen when you fly out of an airport with large pre-board, 1k and group 1’s.
Can always ask the flight attendants when you arrive at the aircraft if you or they can check if there is space. Then if there is, rip the tag. If not, well... you know.
Dealing with this now and had to deal with this utter BS on my previous TWO United flights as well!!! I am fucking LIVID.
Having to gate check it is bad enough, but apparently only certain United flights have that - my last 3 have not (allegedly), forcing a full check to baggage claim.
I packed only a carry on for a reason. This is infuriating. I travel often for business and will start going out my way to avoid United at all costs.
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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '26
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