I don’t envy the stressful jobs that gate agents have. They have to get flights out on-time, so they often try to incentivize people to gate check bags, to avoid any delays. However, I heard an announcement yesterday evening that left me puzzled…
United gate agents claims 737-900 can hold 65 bags
Yesterday I took a United Airlines flight out of Houston, and just prior to boarding, the gate agent announced that the plane only had room for 65 carry-on bags. Therefore she encouraged passengers to gate check their bags, and anyone who was willing to do so would get Group 2 boarding.
Okay, I figured she was just totally making up that number and didn’t mean it, but then as I boarded the aircraft, I saw she had a smartphone where she was keeping count through an app of how many remaining carry-on bags would be allowed.
As each person boarded with a carry-on bag, she’d push a button so that the number would be reduced by one. I boarded toward the end of the first class boarding process, and the number was down to 40, and decreasing.
Can someone help me make the math work here?
A Boeing 737-900 being able to accommodate just 65 full size carry-on bags makes no sense to me. Admittedly this plane had an ancient interior, which made me appreciate American’s Boeing 737s, by comparison, which is saying a lot. So yeah, the plane didn’t have the modern overhead bins that allow you to store bags on their side, which you nowadays find on many aircraft.
Even so, I can’t make sense of the math here:
- When Alaska reconfigured its 737-900s to add larger overhead bins, the airline claimed that this would increase capacity by 48%, from 117 bags to 174 bags, so about 117 bags sounds right to me
- A United Boeing 737-900 has 32 rows, which have an absolute minimum of 30″ of pitch; United claims that carry-on bags can be up to 14″ wide, so you should be able to store at least four bags per row (two on each side), give or take
- Is there some other factor I’m not considering here? Yes, there are crew bags, but even those shouldn’t change things that much, since the above math is super conservative (the average of the 32 rows has way more than 30″ of pitch, when you consider first class and Economy Plus)
So does anyone have a guess here? Is it normal for gate agents at United to name an arbitrarily low limit on carry-on bags? And if so, does anyone know if these numbers are provided by the company, or if gate agents are able to make up their own numbers?
For what it’s worth, this flight had roughly 40 empty seats, and on top of that, United basic economy fares don’t come with a carry-on bag. At the end of boarding, I still saw a significant amount of open overhead bin space in the cabin.
Bottom line
While I’m used to hearing gate agents announce all kinds of things to encourage people to gate check their carry-ons, a United gate agent suggesting a 737-900 could only hold 65 carry-on bags is a new one for me. It didn’t seem she was just saying that number over the PA as an idle threat, but rather she actually had a tracker that seemed to correspond to that.
Anyone have any guesses here? Are these specific number limits normal at United?
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