Rejected hand luggage at the gate
Don’t know whether it’s just me, but I’ve seen a real uptick in the number of airlines and handling agents checking gate bags on several low cost airlines, more so in western Europe. Name no names because this seems to be a trend across several of the bigger players.
It now feels like every single flight, about 30-50% of passengers are targeted to place their items in the frame to see if it fully fits. More often than not these don’t fit marginally where likely it would indeed fit in the overhead lockers.
Presumably staff are being incentivised to find these bags? This didn’t feel too prevalent before last year. Maybe it’s just my own anecdotal evidence.
I write this as someone who has never been targeted, but tend to check bags in more often than not. I see stories on social media of people using bags on many prior occasions and then being hit with fees more recently. I don’t buy this “saves time” nonsense either.
On the flip side, I’ve seen many occasions where overhead lockers are full to the brim on full service carriers, more so than what was probably intended.