My husband and I had round trip flights from Milwaukee to Denver. These were our first since the new charges for checked baggage were in affect.
The MKE to DEN flight (full but not sold out), the onboard crew seemed ticked off that people were not loading into the plane fast enough, and announced several times that if we didn’t hurry up, we would have a late departure. I fully attribute this to less checked/more carryon luggage.
Leaving Denver was a whole different scenario.for every departing flight, we heard that you could gate check your carryon at no charge, and pick it up at the luggage carousel at the destination. And, they were adamant that each person was allowed 2 items, Ie a suitcase and 1 (and only 1) personal item. They emphasized that the 1 personal sized item, specifically called out purses, murses, blankets, pillows etc needed to be consolidated into 1 personal carryon, or you could not board the plane.
Now…while I saw several people get scanned in and enter the jet bridge with 2 personal items (Ie a piece of luggage and 2 personal items), they did not appear to stop anyone.
I also saw what appeared to be carryon bags that appeared to be larger than policy (no, I did not have a tape measure) that were allowed on board as well.