United Airlines new carryon policy

[chrisinhouston]

Well, this new policy of UA is stirring up a lot of emotions. Last week UA announced it would strictly enforce a new policy of limiting carryon items to 2 (coats, outerwear, umbrellas, etc not included) and the size of the items has shrunk; they introduced new sizer displays at all gates and as of last week many gate agents demand that every passenger demonstrate their bags will fit before being allowed to board! This goes for the occasional passeger up to the high flyers in Global Services, the top tier. While they will offer to gate check non complient bags for free at the gate United is now placing workers at the entry to TSA checkpoints in terminals where UA has a majority stakehold who will stop UA passengers there and send them back to the ticket counter to check and pay for their bag to be cheked.

Any of us who fly a lot probably chuckle as we see passengers dragging on bags that will never fit and will have to be dragged back out to the gateway to be gate checked. I don't have any problem with eliminating that or the folks who bring on 3 or 4 small bags. But this new policy is too restrictive IMHO. For instance valuable instruments that used to be allowed like a violin will not be now or charts, plans or presentations that many professionals travel with rolled up in a tube will be forbidden! And as a professional photographer I now worry about bags I used to carry on that fit in the bin but will not qualify under the new policy in many cases. United seems to have taken the measurments from the bins on the smallest of it's big plane fleet. Passengers flying the tiny Embraier jets have always had to have most carryon gate checked.

So, last week my wife flew from Houston to LAX with no problem going but on the return approached the GA with here BP and he said her backpack computer bag was too big for the smaller bag so it would become her larger carryon and she would need to check her small pullman suitcase. She explained her polar fleece was in the backpack and offered to pull it out and told him her backpack crushes down. He was a real asshole and said, "I've told you what you need to do, if you don't you won't be on this flight!" She felt he picked her out as a middle aged petite woman to make an example of her and she really did not want to miss her flight so she complied and checked the hard side pullman. When she boarded she put the backpack under the seat in front of her feet as she always did and even took a picture of it. To add insult to injury her hard side bag was cracked when she got home and unpacked and discovered the damage. Too late to make a claim now.

So today I am with her and will be getting on the same flight from LAX to Houston so we will see what they do. Hoping Kevin, the rude gate agent isn't there or I may have a word with him... might get in trouble if I do so maybe not.

In the end I think this new policy comes down to more money from checked bags. The problem with some people (and really it is a small amount of people) bringing on to large a bag began when the airlines began to make people pay to check a bag so they chose not to do that. And I think UA will regret this new policy as many frequent flyers who make up a large portion of their daily customers are talking about flying other airlines.