Toney mag for smart people The Atlantic has solved the overhead problem. Encourage people not to carry on or to carry on less by employing:
…Spirit’s strategy: make it more expensive to carry-on luggage than to check bags. If it cost $30 to carry-on and $10 to check, I can almost guarantee that you would see a vast improvement in amount of free overhead bin space.
Second, if airlines don’t want to create another fee, then eliminate the one for regular-sized checked bags and increase ticket prices accordingly. I have often crammed as much as possible into my carry-on-sized suitcase to avoid the fee associated with bringing a larger bag that would have to be checked. After all, doing so can save you a significant amount of money on a round trip.
A third alternative is to price all luggage — whether carry-on or checked — based on weight. Then, flyers will still have an incentive to pack light to save airlines money on fuel, but won’t have a disincentive to check. If it were free to check, some passengers would still likely prefer to carry-on due to fears of lost luggage, but surely more would be open to checking. - read more
Don’t like #1, #2 is better, and I think #3 is better still, though none are as good as this radical idea: Enforce existing rules!