4 ms·

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 fo

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?

bawolff 1y ago
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)
- AnotherGoodName 1y ago
  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.
- crowcroft 1y ago
  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.
Macha 1y ago
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.
- barbazoo 1y ago
  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).
blitzar 1y ago
> 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.
- usefulcat 1y ago
  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.
  - deepspace 1y ago
    I flew on a Westjet flight a few days ago, where they charged a fee for gate checking.
    - adastra22 1y ago
      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.
      - blitzar 1y ago
        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.
  - blitzar 1y ago
    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-conditions/fees-charges https://www.easyjet.com/en/help-centre/policy-terms-and-cond... [1] https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/travel/inflight/basic-economy.html#:~:text=You%27re%20not%20allowed%20a%20carry%2Don%20bag%20unless,pay%20a%20$65%20fee%20to%20check%20it. https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/travel/inflight/basic-econo...
FireBeyond 1y ago
Faster onloading and offloading time reduces gate time, which can easily snowball if you have other delays.
sjsdaiuasgdia 1y ago
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.
Jtsummers 1y ago
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.

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?

bawolff 1y ago

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)

AnotherGoodName 1y ago
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.
crowcroft 1y ago
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.

Macha 1y ago

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.

barbazoo 1y ago
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).

blitzar 1y ago

> 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.

usefulcat 1y ago
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.
- deepspace 1y ago
  I flew on a Westjet flight a few days ago, where they charged a fee for gate checking.
  - adastra22 1y ago
    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.
    - blitzar 1y ago
      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.
- blitzar 1y ago
  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-conditions/fees-charges https://www.easyjet.com/en/help-centre/policy-terms-and-cond... [1] https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/travel/inflight/basic-economy.html#:~:text=You%27re%20not%20allowed%20a%20carry%2Don%20bag%20unless,pay%20a%20$65%20fee%20to%20check%20it. https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/travel/inflight/basic-econo...

FireBeyond 1y ago

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

sjsdaiuasgdia 1y ago

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.

Jtsummers 1y ago

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.