There’s your problem: flying to New Zealand without counting your sheep first.
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How do we know there isn’t? 
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Boo to you sir, I say boo!
there must have been a puppy in there 
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…and making more people pay for early boarding or to check bags on their next flight to avoid that stress.
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But stowing carryons is the main thing that takes up time when loading the plane. Really, if everybody checked their baggage the plane would spend less time on the ground, and for short flights that might mean an additional flight per day.
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I think there are a couple issues at play:
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Different planes have different overhead bin designs, but I don’t think there are many (if any) planes that actually have enough overhead space for every single passenger to stow a rollaboard. And even if they did, enough people bring on oversized items, or try to stow two items overhead, or put up their bags at the first available open bin (even if they’re sitting all the way in the back of the plane), that on flights with checked baggage fees, there’s usually a shortage of overhead space, especially in the front half of the plane.
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Flight and gate crews are under a lot of pressure to make the plane leave the gate on time, and dealing with stowing luggage in the overhead bins is one of the easiest ways for them to miss that mark. Pressuring passengers into gate checking their bags (even when it’s not strictly necessary) is a lot more efficient than trying to rearrange luggage on a crowded plane to make everything fit in the overhead bins, or allowing passengers to go to the back of the plane to stow their bags overhead and then salmon their way back to the front to take their seat. Note that Southwest’s emphasis on turnaround time is one of the reasons that they both (1) eschew assigned seating and (2) don’t charge for checked bags.
Note that in this video they are not arguing over whether the bag is too big to carryon. They are arguing over whether it qualifies as a “personal item.” The passengers here have almost certainly bought an ultra-cheap Basic Economy ticket from United, which doesn’t allow you to bring a rollaboard-type carryon, only a “personal item” that will fit under the seat in front of you (which you aren’t supposed to put in the overhead bin at all). United’s theory in offering Basic Economy fares is that it gives passengers more choice (because you can choose to pay a few dollars more and bring a carryon, but you have the cheaper fare available if you don’t need one), but the second they announced it a few years ago it was pretty obvious that it’s mainly a recipe for sparking fights between airline staff and pissed off passengers like these.
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ding! ding! ding! ding! ding!
For some reason only Southwest seems to buy that theory. The other airlines seem to think that checked bag and air freight revenue outweigh the value of turning planes around more quickly.
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Last time I flew United, they were letting people board without lifting a finger to try to stop the stream of folks with multiple carry-ons (above the normal limits). By the time 2/3 of the passengers had boarded, they ran out of space in the bins, and forced the rest of us to gate-check. I had never witnessed that kind of laissez faire attitude among the gate staff and plane crew before. Blew my mind.
Between the kind of bullshit pointed out in this article and the “cram the puppy in the bin” atrocity a few days ago, I have no further interest in flying United. Friendly skies, my ass.
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I fly with a tape measure (I sew). I am also well aware of how poorly people estimate size.
Those containers’ inner dimensions are usually 3/4” to 1 1/4” smaller than stated values. Often, those containers are built of 3/8” or 5/8” stock, so the EXTERIOR dimensions are correct to the stated limitations.
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I’m sure Fox LOVED that the guy was black and had a “foreign” accent. You can just hear their millions of followers smugly saying “See?” .
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Sounds like I’ll be adding a tape measure to my go-bag. Great idea.
Really, when an industry has to rely on a shoddy trick that would make a carny blush maybe it’s time to find another way.
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Oh, I’m sure they’re aware of the rig, and they’re fine with it because it benefits them. But it may have originated as a practical misunderstanding of the requirements. I’ve written requirement documents and edited badly written ones. Those exterior dimensions bins probably started out as bad requirements. 250 of those bins were built, then someone realized they were wrong. Expensive to replace and it turns out to be useful to the company who provides it. Building a wood box to a given spec is much easier if the spec is for the exterior dimensions, and that would be the general assumption.
Allow me to make two recommendations. You only need a 6 foot/2 meter when traveling, usually. I prefer the Clover Shiro retractable, since it has metric & imperial, is about 2.5” x 2.5” x .5” and is mostly plastic except for one spring, so doesn’t make TSA lose its shit. But it’s a flexible measure, and some people prefer a rigid one. For that, you want a mini-Stanley. They survive better, and they’re not more expensive than the cheap ones. But TSA reads them as a spring and a coil, so take it out of its pocket and leave it top-visible.
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Thanks for the recommendations. But now you’ve got me worried about sloppy requirements docs in the airline industry!
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When I traveled two months ago and four months ago, on several flights they asked for checking bags as a precaution. I refused if I had a choice and upon boarding found a lot of space in the open compartments. They closed several with extra space before takeoff.
On one flight, they prematurely insisted everyone in boarding sections 3, 4, and 5 had to check. Sure enough, there was more than enough open space in the compartments when we got on board and several passengers complained about the poor decision.
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Yea, I’ve noticed the same thing. It definitely bugs me. However, I’ve also noticed that so many airlines now charge for extra for checked luggage, so it seems to be a cost saving technique.
Also, just don’t bring so much damn stuff.
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Oh, it’s fine, I promise. Engine, avionics, maintenance and structural requirements are excellent and written to great standards. I am not blowing smoke on this; tech writing standards for the parts related to keeping planes from falling out of the sky are stellar. Wanna learn tech writing? Learn from a retired airlines maintenance writer, or better yet, the trainer for one of those teams.
The problem is ground crew, customer service, in-airport ops? Those are where the engine, avionics, maintenance and structural writers learn before being promoted. With much higher wash-out rates. So… yeah.
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This is part of why I’ve been flying on Southwest when that’s an option.
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United is on track to beat Comcast as America’s most hated company. Flying has become a stress filled shit show.
The bag game is yet another way to stress passengers and extract additional revenue beyond that which was asked for up front. United now has “Basic Economy” tickets, which fuck over the customer even more than shitty airlines like spirit and frontier. It is quite unreasonable to assume someone will fly with a “small personal item” and the clothes on their back.
These bag games are negotiating in bad faith, and cause problems for everyone. Flights did not generally take 35 minutes to deboard before all these shitty baggage shenanigans.
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