Do us all a favor, just remove the overhead bins completely and if it doesnt fit under the seat in front of you, it doesn't come onboard... Where are people going with all these bags. Its insane.
new c/o bag sizes
- Thread starter tea42
- Start date
http://blogs.wsj.com/middleseat/2009/01/21...-business-with/
US Airways Exec: ‘We’re Not Easy to do Business With’
"We’re not easy to do business with: Many of our policies and procedures, designed to fit the systems available to us or to protect our company’s revenue, can be confusing or perceived as inconvenient to our customers."
http://news14.com/content/local_news/charl...ts/Default.aspx
US Airways Exec: ‘We’re Not Easy to do Business With’
"We’re not easy to do business with: Many of our policies and procedures, designed to fit the systems available to us or to protect our company’s revenue, can be confusing or perceived as inconvenient to our customers."
http://news14.com/content/local_news/charl...ts/Default.aspx
Piney you do have an answer for everything...
The UA thing is when they had it installed on the x-ray machine at the security checkpoint, not at the gate or ticket counter. US needs sizer boxes at the gate and at the ticket counter. Like the prior poster said, if it does not fit check it.
What people also forget is the FAA signs off on these rules, which become part of the Federal Register, which the FAA enforces on the airlines. The FAA has been doing spot checks to see if US is enforcing the new policy. If an FAA inspector catches the Gate Agent not enforcing the new carry-on rule, it is a personal fine of $10,000 per bag! that the employee has to pay, not the company.
All the agents are trying to do is their job so they don't get that famous $10,000 fine per bag.
Our station had an FAA SPOT CHECK a couple of months ago....an inspector noticed a passenger go down the jetway with a 3rd carry on and it was subsequently written up with a warning, but thankfully NOT a fine. Need I say more? Yes, the FAA is watching us and we MUST COMPLY. Whether or not the customer perceives it as being inconvenient, it's also a safety issue.
The carry on situation right now is out of control, not to mention it's hindering on time performance, especially turn times.
It's becoming nearly impossible to turn an A319 for example, full in, full out in the alloted 35 minutes they give us, especially in the Florida markets. Inevitably of course, you end up tagging 10 or more bags on the jetway when it's time to close the door. TURN TIME BLOWN.
The carry on situation right now is out of control, not to mention it's hindering on time performance, especially turn times.
It's becoming nearly impossible to turn an A319 for example, full in, full out in the alloted 35 minutes they give us, especially in the Florida markets. Inevitably of course, you end up tagging 10 or more bags on the jetway when it's time to close the door. TURN TIME BLOWN.
N965VJ
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US had sizer boxes at the gates in the 90s, but Wolfe did away with them.
Let’s not give those clowns something else to fail at.
nycbusdriver
Veteran
Well, of course now that the company is charging for every checked bag, passengers are dragging everything to the gate. I may be incorrect, but when bags are tagged in the jetway when there's no room in the overheads, those bags go for free. Who wouldn't endure the slight inconvenience of taking the bag the few hundred steps beyond the ticket counter to save the charge?
Also, when the FAA watches and someone takes three bags down the jetway, are they sure the agent hasn't already put a check tag on one of them? I see gate agents dutifully doing their job and placing a tag on the third bag, then asking the passenger to just leave it at the end of the jetway. Poof! The bag tag disappears enroute down the jetway and, if they're near the start of boarding, they carry them on anyway while most of the F/As just roll their eyes.
Also, when the FAA watches and someone takes three bags down the jetway, are they sure the agent hasn't already put a check tag on one of them? I see gate agents dutifully doing their job and placing a tag on the third bag, then asking the passenger to just leave it at the end of the jetway. Poof! The bag tag disappears enroute down the jetway and, if they're near the start of boarding, they carry them on anyway while most of the F/As just roll their eyes.
No problem! Those large rolling garment bags are not allowed per the FAA. Yet when an agent tries to enforce that, he or she gets told "well I have been allowed to take it on before and I travel with US every week." The common gate agent response is, "well I am just enforcing the rules" and then said Pax takes the employees name and then the employee gets upset because he or she is just enforcing the rules and doing their job. I have a friend that has had that happen several times to her.
No doubt the rules need to be enforced everywhere. However, once a 45" bag hits expandable mode (the extra zipper opened) it is no longer a legal carry-on. This is where the most problems have been, I have been told by my friend who checked 25 over sized bags on one flight, and had her name taken 5 times for enforcing the new rules. The common response from pax was that they flew down with it like this, and the agents response was that the new rules just became effective today, and that it was on the website for a month prior.
.
LAW OFFICES
KATZ & RANZMAN, P.C.
SUITE 801
1015 EIGHTEENTH STREET, N.W.
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20036
(202) 659-4656
September 16, 2003
Re: FAA/TSA/DOT Fines for Security Breaches
As requested, I have done legal research and analysis regarding potential FAA/TSA/DOT fines imposed directly on airport agents for security breaches and regarding the threatened "pass-through" by an airline of such a fine imposed on the airline.
For the reasons outlined below, and subject to additional research and analysis on the issues needed to complete a thorough review of the applicable law in this area, my initial reaction is to question whether there is any significant likelihood that an airport agent could legally be fined in a summary fashion for simply failing to conduct a satisfactory investigation of a door alarm incident (the example given me).
I. An Airline Cannot Lawfully Pass Through Its Fines to an Agent.
Starting with the threat by an airline supervisor to subject an airport agent with the "pass-through" of any FAA/TSA/DOT fine imposed on the airline, I see at least two serious obstacles to the valid implementation of such a threat.
First, CWA's collective bargaining agreement with US Airways imposes a "just cause" standard for the carrier's imposition of discipline and requires written notice of the specific offense leading to the discipline, and the agreement further provides a series of steps to review the discipline, up to and including an arbitration before the CWA-US Airways System Board of Adjustment. The threat to "pass through" to an airport agent a fine imposed on the carrier by the federal government would conflict with the CWA agreement in many ways. Requiring the employee to pay the airline's monetary fine would constitute discipline within the meaning of the collective bargaining agreement, but the airline has never previously imposed such discipline before, and it is difficult to envision how an employee's alleged failure to conduct a satisfactory investigation of a door alarm incident could justify such discipline, especially in the absence of bargaining with CWA to implement such a departure from past practice. Moreover, the "pass-through" concept, while vague, implies a lessening of the procedural and substantive due process requirements of CWA's collective bargaining agreement, contrary to established arbitral and judicial principles.
Furthermore, decisions of the Federal Aviation Administration and the courts have repeatedly emphasized the non-delegable character of an air carrier's duty in the aviation safety and security areas. In a recent case involving an airline's effort to escape liability by blaming an airport agent for the security infractions at issue, In the Matter of TWA, FAA Order No. 1999-12 at 9 (October 7, 1999), Administrator Jane F. Garvey explained that previous cases establish "that air carriers have a statutory mandate to perform their services with the highest possible standard of care, and that an air carrier's responsibilities are too critical to permit it to transfer its obligations to another." (Citation omitted.) She added, "[A]n air carrier's duty of care has been held non-delegable." (Citation omitted.) Her reasoning, although somewhat insensitive to the collective bargaining responsibilities of airlines as employers, nevertheless confirms the impropriety of the threatened "pass-through" fines:
By holding air carriers responsible for violations committed by their employees, the public is assured that air carriers will do everything in their power to ensure that their employees comply with security and safety regulations. No one is in a better position to bring pressure to bear on air carrier employees to comply with the regulations than the air carriers themselves. For these reasons, permitting TWA and other air carriers to transfer away [to airport agents] their crucial safety and security responsibilities would be contrary to the public interest.
It is at least arguable that allowing an airline to "pass-through" to an airport agent a monetary fine imposed for a security violation constitutes an improper delegation of a non-delegable duty, contrary to this line of authority. Id.; Warbelow's Air Ventures, Inc., FAA Order No. 2000-3 (February 3, 2000); In the Matter of USAir, FAA Order No. 1992-70 at 3-4 (December 12, 1992).
II. FAA/TSA/DOT Rules And Applicable Federal Statutes Do Not to Impose Liability on Airline Agents For This Kind of Conduct.
In the wake of a terrorist bombing in 1988 that destroyed a Pan American World Airways aircraft over Lockerbie, Scotland, as well as the September 11th attacks, Congress and the responsible federal agencies, FAA, TSA and DOT, have enacted stricter aviation security requirements that impose added measures to detect and thwart terrorism.
As before, most of the new rules apply to individuals and companies that hold certificates or permits from the FAA, such as airports, airlines, pilots and mechanics. However, some of the provisions of the key statutes and regulations are worded broadly, and are applicable to all "persons," including passengers and airline employees whose jobs do not require that they hold any special certificates or permits issued by the federal government.
TSA regulations in 49 CFR §1540.105(a), for example, prohibit any "person" from tampering with security systems, entering secured areas without complying with applicable security measures, and misusing airport-issued identification cards. Interfering with or assaulting screening personnel in the performance of their screening duties is barred by §1540.109. Carrying a weapon while attempting to board an aircraft violates §1540.111.
None of these regulations, however, relates to the type of incident you described to me, an alleged failure by an airport agent to investigate satisfactorily a security alarm problem in connection with the closing of aircraft doors as part of the disembarkation of the aircraft. And the evaluation of the propriety of any governmental proceedings to impose a monetary fine on an airport agent for allegedly violating any of the foregoing provisions is thus beyond the scope of my present research and analysis.
The provisions that would appear most closely analogous reside in Part 1544 of Title 49 of the Code of Federal Regulations, which deals with the security obligations of airlines. These rules require each airline to develop an aviation security program, which must be approved by TSA and followed by the airline. The airline must use the procedures in its security program to control checked baggage (§1544.203) and to prevent unauthorized access to its aircraft (§1544.225).
The airline must also ensure that anyone performing security-related duties on its behalf receives training as specified in its security program and has the knowledge of its security program needed to perform their duties (§1544.235). Accordingly, if US Airways has designated an airport agent as a Ground Security Coordinator within the meaning of applicable regulations (§1544.233), it must provide the training needed to perform the duties associated with that designation. The additional training and job duties might well implicate and activate provisions of the CWA-US Airways collective bargaining agreement. But be that as it may, the liability imposed by these regulations is basically on the airline itself. For the same reasons as are outlined in Point I above, monetary fines cannot lawfully be "passed-through" by the airline to employees because that would constitute an attempted delegation of a non-delegable duty.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that the imposition of civil penalties (monetary fines) under the FAA/TSA/DOT regulations occurs under a procedure that the FAA has used for decades. These regulations appear in 49 CFR §1503 and involve the issuance of a written notice to the person potentially subject to the penalty, an opportunity to dispute the penalty through numerous procedural steps, including in an Administrative Law Judge hearing and ultimately before a U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The ALJ for a TSA civil penalty action would be from DOT, rather than the National Transportation Safety Board, as in an FAA case, but otherwise the procedures follow those that the FAA has utilized for imposing monetary fines on airport operators, airlines, pilots, mechanics and hazardous materials shippers for decades. The notion that a government official could summarily fine a CWA-represented agent is therefore contrary to the applicable statutory and administrative requirements, and the concept that the airline could lawfully do so is even more difficult to envision.
This letter summarizes my initial thinking. Please let me know if you would like me to research and analyze this matter further or if you have any questions about this letter.
Very truly yours,
Daniel M. Katz
I work with bgs all day long and have so for a few years. My question is how many of the agents really know how to measure a bag to make sure size and what to charge and the weight and what to charge. NOT MANY from my experience. When the new policy takes effect and they see 45" they will say hey thats ok and its true size is bigger.... 😱
Can’t say I have ever worked with bgs before. But I have work with some know it all before
Rumor has it
New Bag Policy enforcement, yet unknown to the gate agents who were trying to follow the Policy was given a hard time by a first class passenger, Yet this pass is Scott Kirby President.
Gate agent tried to check the bag, even tag it but he took it on the aircraft, with the tags so that other First Class passengers can see. I was told he got on the phone with someone.
But really if your the President and lead by example....
New Bag Policy enforcement, yet unknown to the gate agents who were trying to follow the Policy was given a hard time by a first class passenger, Yet this pass is Scott Kirby President.
Gate agent tried to check the bag, even tag it but he took it on the aircraft, with the tags so that other First Class passengers can see. I was told he got on the phone with someone.
But really if your the President and lead by example....
Travelpro72
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Many passengers pack all they can in a c/o as they are afraid to check a bag in fear of it being lost. That is understandable. With that being said, if US had a 100% guarantee that your bag would not be lost the overheads would STILL be full because most passengers want in and out FAST. Fast meaning not having to stand in front of a carousel waiting for your bag to be spit out. The c/o situation is certainly out of control and has been for some time. The VERY same people that jam the overheads full will piss and moan about how long it takes to deplane. Institute sizers and be done with it. If your bag doesn't fit in the box it gets checked on the spot. This alleviates confusion at the boarding door with bags stacked up with city codes written on napkins waiting for the agent. What a circus it can be at times 
John john, this is in regards to security related items, not carry-on bags. Since the carry-on size is signed off by the FAA they can imposed a fine to the agent working the flight, just like the TSA can for an agent not checking to see if the 4 S's are stamped with the stamp of that time.
An FAA inspector recently got an CLT express agent fired over her allowing a guy to have more than three carry-ons.
Real tired
Veteran
Ya think if AWA, oops sorry, USAirways was worried about the c/o situation, and the precious little overhead space on the aircraft, they would clog up every airplane with the "PSK" and "LSK" ?
