The Regional Airport Baggage Committee voted unanimously Tuesday to establish the nation’s first Overhead Bin Arbitration Panel, a three-person tribunal empowered to settle disputes over carry-on real estate before the cabin door closes.
“We were seeing fistfights at 30,000 feet over two inches of bin space,” said Dale Henniker, 58, the newly appointed Chief Overhead Bin Ombudsman, who will preside over hearings from a folding chair at Gate B12. “Last Thanksgiving, a man from Row 22 tried to store a full-size roasted turkey above Row 8. The turkey slid. Gravy was involved. We swore: never again.”
Under the new rules, any passenger wishing to contest a bin placement must file Form 88-B, Request for Bin Adjudication, with the panel no later than 45 minutes before boarding. The form requires the traveler’s seat number, the dimensions of the disputed item, and a sworn statement that the item “cannot reasonably be compressed, folded, or emotionally let go of.”
The panel’s first docket, published Wednesday morning, includes 14 cases. Among them: a tuba versus a stroller in Bin 4C; a wedding cake in a hatbox that its owner insists is “structurally a hat”; and three separate claims involving the same inflatable Thanksgiving parade balloon, which all three claimants describe as “basically flat when you think about it.”
Hearings will be conducted standing up, last no more than 90 seconds each, and conclude with a binding ruling announced over the gate PA system. “We considered gavels,” Henniker admitted, “but they don’t fit in the bins either.”
The panel’s charter, a 22-page document titled The Bin Code, includes Section 4, Paragraph 9, which states that “in the event of irreconcilable conflict, the item of greater sentimental value shall prevail, as determined by the volume of the owner’s sigh.” Early legal scholars are already calling it the most important aviation document since the invention of the tiny pretzel.
Traveler reactions were mixed. “I waited 40 minutes to board and now I need a court order to put my backpack somewhere?” said Karen Ellison, 41, who was flying home with what she described as “a manageable amount of Tupperware.” Panel supporters countered that Ellison’s Tupperware, stacked, measured 31 inches tall, “which is not a carry-on, that’s a filing cabinet.”
The committee confirmed the panel will operate through the holiday season, with extended hours on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, when, Henniker noted, “the bins contain the hopes and leftovers of an entire nation, and every single one of them is somebody else’s fault.”
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