I travelled in cattle class today on a domestic and saw the BIGGEST suitcase you have ever seen go down the aisle (one with the four little wheels on the bottom). The CSM allowed it to go straight past them during boarding.
It only rolled down the aisle in business, once cattle class was reached, no matter how much the dumb b**** tried, she couldn't roll it down the aisle (even side on, what's the width of the aisle in a 737?).
She then proceeded to pick it up and carry it above the level of the seat backs to get it down the back.
She shoved the bottom of it in a locker and it became jammed. When she couldn't push it in, or get it back out, she promptly sat down and left it hanging precariously over someone in the aisle seat. Eventually an FA from the rear came forward and extricated it. Where it ended I'll never know.
I would have been putting it squarely up the clacker of the staff at the boarding gate and the CSM.
My solutions:
1. This paying extra for checked baggage crap has to stop.
2. Passengers who check in online should have to put their luggage in the demonstrator unit while their boarding pass is scanned at the gate. Surely the software could identify passengers who have checked in online and flag them, requiring the demostrator unit to be used.
3. Gate staff need to enforce limits - number of bags AND size.
4. Aircraft crew have to enforce limits - FAs, CSMs, and with the unequivocal support of the skipper should it get to that.
Safety reports do diddly-squat, I must have lodged a dozen or more in my time at QF on this very issue. Never got a response.
Typical of modern SMS systems. A complete waste of time (despite what Fort Fumble says).