I fly Air Tran several times a year and usually use the same duffel. The bag has never even been glanced at as far as I know, until this past Dec. That day they were measuring any bag that even looked close. Not only that, but they weren't measuring them accurately either. They leaned the duffel up against the wall, (where they weigh the bags) and if your bag didn't stand up straight, which mine didn't, then they included the lean in their width measurements (which since they measured the width at the bottom from the wall outward, meant they were including the space between the wall and the bag). Also if anything in the bag fell toward the bottom making the bottom bulge out, they measured from the bulge area straight out, then straight up (even if the top part of the bag was then empty and sinking inward. They also included the wheels and even the soft cloth handle that stuck up just a tad on the top of the bag. My bag is easily within their limits, but that day it was very close because of the way they measured it. However, the people in front of us were told that all three of their bags were too big. They were arguing that they had always used those same bags and they had never had a problem, that the bags were less than 61", and it was just the way they were measuring them that was a problem. They too had soft rolling duffle bags like I did. From what I could see, it was the fact that they were including space that the bag was not actually taking up that was the problem (again the empty space between the wall and bag at the lean and how once they measured low from the wall outward to include both that space and any bulges where stuff fell to the bottom of the bag, they then pulled the tape straight up basically measuring nothing but empty space, since the top of the duffel was then empty).
