Over the weekend I ran a poll to get some feedback about a topic that I’ve often thought  a lot about both while waiting to board and during boarding.

I have my opinion on overhead bin space but wanted to see what you think when it comes to the question: Who Owns The Overhead Bin Space?

I decided to run a poll after writing a post a few months back about the (overhead bin space) topic which you can check out here.

In my poll I asked just a couple of questions:

1. Who should have priority for overhead bin space?
2. Should passengers be allowed to use any available overhead bin on the plane?

Although my poll is just a small sample size of flyers, I like to think my readers are educated and frequent flyers and travelers.

With that said, I am happy to say that the direction of your votes seem to be pretty much in line with my thoughts on the topic!

Here are the results:

Question 1:

Question 2:

The response to question #1 was a landslide in favor of nobody deserving priority to overhead bin space. While I totally agree with the response, I actually didn’t expect the vote to be so far apart. These days it seems like everyone flies with rollaboard luggage. I’d expect those that do to vote in favor of expecting priority for their luggage.

While with question #2 the winning choice was overwhelmingly in favor of one choice, there was still some competition. Over 60+% of the voters feel that overhead bin space should be for the row directly under it, around 30% felt that passengers should be allowed to place their luggage anywhere in the cabin they are sitting in.

While I do agree with the winning option, I think I made a mistake by not phrasing it better. I feel that the overhead bin should be used for the row below but sometimes 3 people’s items will not all fit in that space. Those people should be able to keep it in the cabin they are sitting in as close as possible to their seat. Of course this leads to more people being displaced from the bin above their row which can then lead to arguments and issues related to the topic.

In the end, I still feel that everyone deserves a fair crack at overhead bin space. If the policy is one bag up top per person, those traveling with a backpack should not be told to keep it by their feet. Why should they be penalized and lose precious foot space?

The only way to solve this problem would be if each seat came with an assigned space similar to a locker like a reader suggested in my original post related to this topic.

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