Frontier Airline’s Baggage Rules

I’m ticked off enough to name names this time. I flew out to the Romance Writer’s of America’s National Convention in Washington DC last Wednesday on Frontier Airlines. The first leg of the trip was normal, but the second leg was over booked. I took a duffel that came to exactly the limit as outlined by Frontier on their website – a total of 49 inches when combining height, width, and length.

On the second leg of the trip out I made the mistake of not worrying about getting on the airplane quickly. By the time I reached my seat, the overhead bins were filled. This included one bag that was clearly over sized. It was turned lengthwise in the bin. I reached up to correct it, wondering why the stewardess, who was standing right next to me, hadn’t.

She immediately stepped in and told me not to touch it. She told me to place my bag in one of the bins toward the front of the plane. Considering the aisle was packed, everyone was quickly thrusting their bags into the overhead bins, and they had long since announced that over sized bags wouldn’t be allowed because the plane was over booked, I knew my chances of following her orders were about zero and told her so.

Considering I was on my way to a convention, and needed everything in my bag, I didn’t want to risk it getting lost in flight. Besides, why should I pay the $15 charge for checking when I was not in the wrong. Clearly, I had to get my bag into the overhead bin. Ignoring the stewardess – whose name is Eva Jean, BTW – I pulled out a laptop case that had been put in sideways so it took up a full bags worth of space, put the laptop in front of the over sized bag, and put mine in. It fit fine.

The whole time the stewardess is telling me not to. I point out the bag should be checked because it is over sized, and she tells me I should check mine instead. The woman was useless. Worse, after I’d gotten my bag into place, she lectured me on bringing a suitcase onto the plane, saying it was for carry ons only. Mine is a carry on.

So what was wrong with the woman? About half way through the flight I found out. A man in a pilot’s uniform got a sandwich from the over sized bag.

So my question for you today is, if you were the stewardess, what would you have done? If the bag belonged to a friend of yours, a co-worker, would you have made him check it?

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