***Story originally aired on March 31, 2014***
You see them on every flight, people who don’t want to check their luggage or pay extra baggage fees so they stuff all of their items into a carry-on bag and drag it onboard.
Oversized carry-on luggage can cram overhead bins, delay flights and it’s about to cost air travellers more.
"If it takes longer for people to find space in the overhead bins, it means the flight may take a delay, because it's taking longer to get everything settled," said Robert Palmer, WestJet’s manager of public relations.
The major American airlines are starting to fight back. United Airlines is now reminding customers about the regulatory limits on the size and number of bags they can bring onboard, adding more sizing stations near check in areas and hiring contract workers to stand at the front of security lines looking for travellers with oversized baggage.
"When you get to the security checkpoint, if it doesn't fit in the bin, they're going to force you to pay the $25 dollars and check it," said Scott Mayerowitz, aviation journalist.
B.C. air travellers admit to regularly breaking the carry on rules. A poll done by Insights West found that nearly half of all B.C. residents surveyed admit to jamming everything in a carry-on bag to avoid checking it. One in four surveyed says they have taken a flight where there is no room for their carry-on bags in the overhead bins.
So will Canadian airlines mount their own carry on crackdown?
"If we were to ask each person to put their bag in the sizing rack, can you imagine how long it would take to board the plane? And then you're really defeating the purpose because you're creating a longer delay," said Palmer.
Air Canada told CTV News in an email, "Air Canada does not have plans to implement carry-on bag processes such as those announced by United. The vast majority of our customers respect the carry-on allowances."
WestJet is already eyeballing passengers for oversized carryon and batting away persistent rumours that it's looking at charging travellers for the first checked bag.
"We haven't made a decision and we don't have the ability to do it right now, so even if we wanted to do it, we couldn't," said Palmer.
Luggage manufacturers are partially to blame for the oversized carry on problem. A lot of bags advertised as carry-on are actually way too big, so make sure to check before you buy. As well, several luggage manufacturers are now making bags with zippered expansion systems, that let you overstuff bags to the point where they would never fit into one of those wire sizing contraptions.
