The worst part is that they forced her to gate-check this bag that would have fit in the overhead. I have seen them get really aggressive with this recently, including watching a gate agent approach an old couple who needed pre-boarding assistance and lie to them that their standard roller bag wouldn't fit on the plane and would need to be gate checked.
There was an article recently about Ryanair employees getting commissions when they force someone to check their carry-on, I suspect AC is doing the same thing.
I used to fly a ton, and preferred to gate check my bag. Didn't have to find or fight over overhead space, and I don't remember ever waiting more than a few minutes at the gate. Around half the time it was already waiting for me by the time I actually got off the plane. It almost felt like a valet service rather than a burden.
Gate check in this context means you pick it up at the baggage carousel (and risk them losing it). If it's just the cart that comes out when you deplane (a) your bag really won't fit on board and (b) no it's not a big deal.
FWIW I always travel with soft backpacks instead of hard-shell roller bags. I've never gotten the "you should gate check that". Soft bags fit much better in the overhead and can be squeezed to make room, so the airline employees will never pick the soft backpack guy for gate check.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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)
> 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.
If I were in charge people would have to gate check anything larger than a laptop bag. Overhead luggage makes deplaning take probably 10-20x as long and that can be a safety hazard in an emergency. That's an extra 30~60 minutes total completely wasted even when there isn't one.
This illustrates a dark pattern in the service industry that I really hate: deny people what they're entitled to by default and hope people give up. In this case this person had $1000 in stuff taken from them and the airline told her to file a claim, then denied it, then after they were contacted by a national news organization the re-reviewed the claim and it turns out there was nothing wrong with it at all. It's bullying, it's an attempt to use leverage to deny people what they're entitled to and it's simply wrong. Luckily airlines are too big to fail, or deliver what they sell, or follow basic regulations.
It also depends on the airline, but mostly on the worker, I believe. Some people will go a lot further to help. For example, with Turkish Airlines, I saw how a worker immediately after landing came to find some passengers to tell them there was an issue with the baggage and spent lots of time helping them.
Last month I had a bad experience with them as well. While boarding, they asked me to put the carry-on near the airplane door because the airplane was small (maybe get a bigger airplane next time!), so in good faith I did because I expected to take it while leaving, but I didn't. Other passengers had three pieces and they just got them inside, but my only piece was requested to be at the door. The problem is that the carry-on had EVERYTHING in it: my laptop, power bank, charging cables, some papers, etc., and I only had my passport and phone with me, luckily! Or I would have been stuck since my trip had 3 connections in different countries. My laptop got broken, some stuff was taken too, and I was afraid the power bank would explode as well. When I requested the bag after the first flight, they just refused. Never traveling on Air Canada again.
Before the pitchforks get out of control here it could be as harmless as a couple of bags popping open in transit and the guys in baggage did their best to stuff everything back into the correct bag.
Yes it does and the ticket scanner should put all the suggestions of it being malicious theft by immigrants (not you but there’s seriously posts along those lines here as of now) to rest.
Both baggage that’s popped open and loose items get put aside at some stage of loading.
A handler looks at it all and puts loose items in the nearest bags respectively and sends it forward to the lost bag crew. That’s pretty much the simplest explanation here.
Air Canada is a terribly run airline. I avoid them whenever possible. They lost my luggage once and it took a year of badgering them to get them to pay up for it.
I can't get over how bad Air Canada is, compared to porter or even west jet I'm surprised anyone flys them, the people who work for them are clearly angry and the service is always expensive and bad. My most recent travel adventure with them, they fly out of someone else gates/desks at SJO, this is not messaged anywhere - I got to the airport early, and walked around trying to find the Air Canada desk, asking people, nobody seemed to know, checkin closes at 7, it's 6:55...finally find the checkin desk, Swiss Port branded (?) with an Air Canada uniform person, I swear to god she hit enter as she saw me running towards her and closed the flight, yes, I arrived at the desk exactly at 7:01. I called Air Canada and all I said was "how do I find the air Canada checkin desk in SJO?" and the response was, I kid you not, "why are you calling in to find that out?" I explained the situation, put me on hold, came back and explained that Air Canada only has a small team there, and no branded desks, and then in a very scolding tone (really, I was shocked): it was "my responsibility to figure this out in advance of travel, sir". I asked if they could help me rebook, told to "do it online".
Yeah sure, all my own fault I suppose, but also...bugger off Air Canada. </rant>
In fairness to Air Canada a few months ago they pleasantly surprised me. Admittedly long haul international, which does not seem to be as extremely bad as their domestic. Pearson is clearly a disaster area at this point, as that whole gold theft demonstrated.
Yeah, I've been travelling around Canada and the US for two years now for work (~30 trips) and Air Canada had a dramatic improvement somewhere around Spring/Summer 2024. From November 2023 to around April 2024 I was keeping track of the probability of actually having my checked bags arrive at the destination and they were sitting around 60%. Since around Spring 2024 it improved dramatically, plus they started offering (mediocre) beer for free in economy!
People fly air canada because the regultor protexts their routes so they or their partner are often the only option, especially on ibternational flights. For example. Calgary has hd many direct finternational flights denied over the years becauae the regulator thought we were served enough by flying to vancouver and tking the air canada route from there. Its pretty offensive. Regultors should be figuring how to let a aervice be offered, nit propping up entrenched junk
Not a big fan of Air Canada, but if you are flying out of Montreal (YUL) I find that they have the best airport integration overall by a wide margin. For international flights (excluding the US), my record from drop-off at the airport to sitting at the gate was 15 minutes and it never was more than 45 minutes. Their infotainment system is also pretty good overall, never had a dead screen in +10 flights at this point.
But I feel like the average person flying only a few times a year makes this very difficult to evaluate properly. My only experience with WestJet was abysmal, same for Delta. United was ok. Transat (much smaller) was good.
1. They are significantly larger with more complex operations than either Westjet or Porter. If people flew Porter or Westjet as frequently as Air Canada, I'm sure they'd suddenly have just as many negative experiences with them.
2. A lot of Canadian Airports SUCK, and this then gives the perception of Air Canada making a mess of things.
They tried to land in the SFO taxiway nearly missing several jets not too many years ago. I think they cleared one by 20 feet or so. Not very promising.
I actually know someone who did contract IT support for them. I'm kind of surprised by how at least the IT component operates. It looks to me like there are multiple middle men trying to outsource nearly their entire company to the absolute cheapest thing they can find.
Maybe all airlines work that way but I can't imagine that results in something functional.
They also have more frequencies. E.g. Porter flies once a day YYZ-SFO. Air Canada has ~5 flights on the same route, plus various options via YVR or YUL. As bad as they are, it's good to have options for cancelled flights or changes of plans. AC know they are the only game in town which is why their service can be so bad. On routes where they have competition, particularly long-haul to Asia, I understand their product is much better.
This isn't always an option any more. Everyone wants to bring their stuff onboard because of the horrors of checked baggage, so good luck having room in the overhead compartments if you're boarding zone 5. The article mentions "Royle says she was asked by an Air Canada representative to check her carry-on suitcase for her flight from Toronto to Newfoundland in March", so yeah Air Canada lost her carry on bag. I've witnessed pretty violating experiences with Air Canada with people trying to pack light and then getting stripped of their belongs "because there's no room in the cabin". At the end of the day you have to comply with airline employees.
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There was an article recently about Ryanair employees getting commissions when they force someone to check their carry-on, I suspect AC is doing the same thing.
I used to fly a ton, and preferred to gate check my bag. Didn't have to find or fight over overhead space, and I don't remember ever waiting more than a few minutes at the gate. Around half the time it was already waiting for me by the time I actually got off the plane. It almost felt like a valet service rather than a burden.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Both baggage that’s popped open and loose items get put aside at some stage of loading.
A handler looks at it all and puts loose items in the nearest bags respectively and sends it forward to the lost bag crew. That’s pretty much the simplest explanation here.
Yeah sure, all my own fault I suppose, but also...bugger off Air Canada. </rant>
Noel recently covered Air Canada vs Porter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_acPeCOY1I
Welcome to Canada!
But I feel like the average person flying only a few times a year makes this very difficult to evaluate properly. My only experience with WestJet was abysmal, same for Delta. United was ok. Transat (much smaller) was good.
1. They are significantly larger with more complex operations than either Westjet or Porter. If people flew Porter or Westjet as frequently as Air Canada, I'm sure they'd suddenly have just as many negative experiences with them.
2. A lot of Canadian Airports SUCK, and this then gives the perception of Air Canada making a mess of things.
I've only ever flown out of YVR and I have nothing bad to say about AC, so the airport could be a factor!
Maybe all airlines work that way but I can't imagine that results in something functional.
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I usually just bring a backpack small enough to fit under the seat as well. Depending on the trip, that's obviously not always an option.