On the routes I usually fly, waiting at the carousel usually doesn’t add more than maybe 15 minutes. And I usually go to the bathroom and grab some food anyway.

It’s certainly preferred over the hell of trying to get my bags overhead, and also allows you to wait and be the last person on the plane, minimizing time crammed in a tiny seat.

The amount of cumulative time wasted because of stowing bags is immense.

The mean is low, but he variance is very high - if they lose your bag, you could be waiting for days!

I mostly fly direct domestic, so it’s basically impossible to lose my luggage.

Waiting at the carousel has never been 15 minutes for me. You must travel to tiny airports. I literally never seen an airport that's taken less than half an hour to deliver my bags.

SFO, JFK, SEA, and MCO (Orlando). Orlando is the smallest and also the slowest. Always direct, domestic flights.

> I have the opposite experience. I never want to check my bags because waiting around at the carousel for a checked bag isn't my idea of a good time. I want to be able to just walk off the plane and get to ground transportation with minimal delays.

I see how that's convenient, and I would prefer that too. But not to be passive aggressive about it: I don't want to be part of the problem, so I check luggage when I can.

From other people's comments in this thread I see that most people don't give a shit about anyone else, so I guess I'm an exception.

> I'm usually in boarding Group 3 or 4

Me too. Is this determined by just price of the ticket. I don't get how I am always group 4.

At least for the major US airlines (Delta, United, AA):

- Group 0/pre-boarding is active military, disabled, and infants

- Group 1 is first class & mileage club people

- Group 2 is business class

- Group 3/4 is usually economy

- Group 5 is usually the cheapest basic economy people

You can usually get bumped up to Group 2 by getting the airline's credit card or having a bunch of miles

Why do active military get to board with children and disabled people?

Because 'rah rah' we all love the military. It doesn't cost them anything and they get the PR of everyone boarding a plane hearing about how much they love the military.

It might be a deploy. Military sometimes use civilian transport to cut costs.

Because it's the least that can be done for people willing to take substandard pay for risking their lives in literal battle zones. You can only really use it when you're traveling on orders, meaning being transferred to somewhere away from your family or when you're in full uniform. Most service members I know only use it when being deployed.

You can just walk in after business class and they’ll let you in without hassling about you getting ahead of your next-to-toilet class.

Guaranteed overhead.

Lol

This isn’t always true, fortunately. I’ve seen JetBlue attendants yell at people who kept trying to jump in boarding classes. Line cutters are scum.

The real scum are the people that sit in the back and fill in the overhead bins up front.

Google "travel hacking", learn the game, play the game, and then thank me later. :)

My bag fits under the seat, so I never need to worry.

No, I don’t work for Amazon and that wasn’t an ad but a concrete example of a particular form factor of an underseat bag that came to mind because I happen to own one, and thought it was something other frequent travellers might consider adopting. (I’ve only recently converged on the form factor after having tried many others)

They do fit in most rows except aisle, but even then, because of their small size, they can usually be made to fit in a nearly full overhead compartment (source: recent personal experience). I’ve just returned from traveling around Europe and I can’t count the number of times I’ve managed to avoid inconvenient situations because I didn’t bring a full size rollabord. I’ve even been able to put mine on my lap on a full bus in Spain.

Yeah, most bothering to me are flights were there are some weird seat poles on the seat in front that prevent regular backpacks from fitting in the seat in front - I have had this a few times, it's very annoying having to put the backpack with computer and stuff in the overhead bin.