What the ... Travel

This morning, I woke up way to early, and as is the custom, I first read a couple of chapters of my book, then I grabbed my iPad to check the news.

I saw this steaming pile of bollocks in the WaPo:

This fucking person, Andrea Sachs, feels that she needs to inform us of how to travel. In her world, the overhead bins are solely for rollies, and that everything else should be on your lap or under the seat in front of you.

The implication is that if you don't have a carryon bag, you should just surrender your "space" to those that do.

The rules for stowing belongings in the cabin are straightforward. Carry-on bags such as rolling suitcases and duffels go up. Outerwear and personal items such as backpacks and totes stay down — under the seat in front of you or on your lap.

I want to heartily tell her to shut the fuck up.

You know, there was a time when not everybody tried to bring a rolling bag onto the flight, that most people checked baggage. And no, this wasn't ended when the bag fees were instituted to squeeze every red cent from travelers in fees and add-ons.

There was a time before rolling bags. In fact, I think it was the skiedmark who thought to bolt rollerblade wheels onto a small-ish suitcase that began this "hey, let's bring all our luggage onto the plane in the main cabin" era.

But I digress.

Have you ever seen that little acceptable luggage size gauge? You knoe the ones that if you actually try to fit your roller into it will not fit? So few people's rollies will fit in those dimensions that the flight crew doesn't even bother checking them.

And it is with nods and winks you see people with bags way too large by the published guidelines in the gate area. Only once in all the times I have flown have I seen a gate crew check the size of people's carry-ons ane forcing people to check those too large.

Why I am bitching about this

Mainly, it is because I have a lot of miles under my belt. I am a million-miler on Star Alliance (United - a LOT of US to Asia travel), and probably about 2/3rds the way there on the American system. So, I have put in a lot of miles.

I ALWAYS check my luggage. I prefer to not have to haul it around the airport. And as I am virtually always traveling alone, should I need to nip into the bathroom, I don't want to have to haul my luggage in.

See, practical!

So, I expect to be able to put my backpack (I use a backpack for my laptop, and personal items) in the overhead, and on top of that, if I have a jacket, I like to fold it up and put it there.

It takes less room than even the smallest roller. And I feel that space is mine.

On a side note, this article feels like it was largely written with GenAI.

Am I alone?

Let's check the comments to see if I am off-base, shall we?

Hell yeah. Hard agree.

No lies detected!

Robbie gets it too!

So, here's the real deal. If the plane is full, and everybody brings a properly sized roll-on carry-on, there is not enough room for all the bags in the overhead bins for all the rollers, and then the flight crew needs to manually check the bags.

This article is written as if there is enough bin space for all that luggage, something that isn't true, and has never been true.

And, the airlines should bring back the ability to check one bag for free for all tickets to give people the option to not carry on their bags.

What say you? What is your experience? Drop it in the comments below!