Unpopular Opinion

If it fits in the luggage gauge, it's fine, wheels or not.

If there's no luggage gauge, that's on the airline or airport, not the passenger.

This sort of thing always pits passenger against passenger, but the real villain has been the airlines all along. They "encourage" people to check their bags then charge you more to do so. They cram as many seats into the fucking plane as they can, amplifying every small problem into a big one.

Upvote for actually unpopular opinion.

For good reason. The size limit is the size limit, I don't see what adding two wheels would change about that. For anything that fits in the carry-on size limit, the wheels aren't about the weight, they're for convenience.

If people can't lift their luggage to the overhead bin, they're either weak or you need to find an airline with more reasonable overhead bin limits.

Tell the airlines to reduce the weight limit, problem solved.

That doesn't annoy me, nor does the various ways to load the plane. What I'd like to see is them lock the overhead until the plane is in the gate, and then unlock them one by one, front to back. Sit down until you can get your stuff. People act just like cattle, knowing full well they aren't going anywhere fast all standing up at one time.

Maybe they would check in such a piece if a) it didn't get lost that often, and b) if the prices for that were not designed to buy the CEO another yacht per flight.

I think lighters are banned in flights.

I don’t have your same concern about carry-ons. When I traveled for work a week at a time, it was nice that I could pack 5 days worth of clothes and take them with me without (usually) having to wait for 30+ minutes at the check in line and the bag carousel thereafter. The last thing you want to do when you are nearly back home after a long week of work and travel is to have to wait yet once more.

What I do take issue with is the people who queue all the way out into the hallway when boarding. Especially when they’re in the last groups and the first groups are just being called. It’s definitely worse in some airports (looking at you, CLT and ATL).

Or, all the people who immediately stand in the aisle when deboarding. Let those people who need to make their connections get up and out first.

The way people handle themselves around airline travel (particularly in the US) is one of the only places that makes me lose faith in humanity.

What airline are you flying on that doesn't check the size of carry-ons?

The problem is bag fees.

The public, despite its nostalgia for the glory days of plane travel that the masses could never afford, has made it undeniably clear that price is the only metric that they care about at the end of the day. They endlessly sift through flight listings for the cheapest flight(s) to the destinations they want to go to, and it leads to carriers like Spirit or Ryanair that charge you for everything but the oxygen in the aircraft cabin while offering the lowest sticker price before fees.

Planes aren’t cheap to operate and airlines will extract profit from you one way or the other. If they’re forced to compete by offering “fake” airfares to display that don’t include bag fees, seat choice, or connection times, then that’s what you’ll get to see when you search for your flight and that’s what you’ll click on, they hit you with the fees after you’ve already initiated the first steps of booking.

People are still cheap AF, despite somehow expecting first class service between Fort Lauderdale and Charlotte for $95, and will cram everything they can into a carry-on or roll-aboard (not roller board, please. Pet peeve) to avoid having to check a bag or an additional bag.

This also unfortunately leads to all those maddening crowds at the gate blocking the concourse aisles because people want to cram all their shit in the overhead bins and not under the seat in front of them - compounded by the already tight seat spacing and the fact that people carry a ton of shit - because they don’t want to gate check a bag. They crowd the gate so they can get aboard first.

I work for the airlines and I consider bag fees to be evil because they cause so many frustrations for everyone involved except the accountants. But, unfortunately the public only cares about price, so this is the monster they helped create.

Ive seen backpacks grade school sized that are pretty much empty being rolled behind a kid.

What if my carry-on has wheels but I never use them and I actually carry the bag all the way from the moment I enter the airport to the moment I put it in the overhead compartment?

So it is not actually about the bag or it's size or weight, it is about the relative weight of the bag to the persons strength? Massive guy: big and heavy bag. Tiny woman: small and light bag. Correct?

1st world problems.

I guess fuck people with disabilities right? I hate ableist people like you.