"GS" wrote in message
om...
[...] I said, "What regulation is that as I've never heard of it before."
All she said, "oh this is nothing new" but of course was not able to cite
any regulation. I'm not expecting them to know the details like pilots do
but they should know something and should be consistent. Now I am
admittedly not familiar with Part 121 (and the UA Op Specs, etc.) but as
far as I could find, what I did was perfectly allowable under the FAR's.
On the ground while I was "taxi'ing" to the baggage claim, I checked with
a pilot afterwards and he also believed it was allowed. Was I wrong?

As surprising to you as it may be, the flight attendant is correct and you
and the pilot you asked are both wrong (or he misunderstood your question).
FAR 121.589 and 121.285 govern how carry-on baggage must be secured. Your
technique is allowed on Part 121 operations, but only on a non-transport
category airplane. I doubt United Airlines flies non-transport category
airplanes, thus your method of securing your carry-on was not allowed in
that situation.

I won't get too much into the other part of your question. That is, the
supposed quoting of non-existent regulations. You say you think it happens
a lot, but at least in this case you made a false assumption that it was
happening, and I wonder how many other times you similarly do so. I'm sure
such quoting of non-existing regulations does happen, but flight attendants
also have to deal with people who, inspite of federal regulations requiring
them to comply with crew member requests (and that includes anything a
flight attendant tells them to do), will argue with them about it.

A flight attendant *ought* to be able to tell passengers to do things, even
when they are not required by regulation, if those things still appear to be
necessary for safety on the flight. They do in fact have that authority,
and for good reason. A flight attendant *ought* to be able to explain that
there is a safety need for the request, and that *ought* to be sufficient.
But for some reason, there are lots of people who armchair quarterback the
situation and think they know better than the flight attendant and who argue
with them. I'm sure that flight attendants just get sick and tired of
dealing with people like that and find it easier to claim that it's a
regulation.

And I'll bet that in many cases, the flight attendant who quotes regulations
actually *is* telling the truth and the passenger just blindly assumes they
know better, even when it's the passenger who is ignorant of the facts.

Sure, it would be great if every time a flight attendant quoted a
regulation, they could quote chapter and verse. But I'll bet there's a lot
of rules just in Parts 61 and 91 (the ones that govern your flying) that you
can't quote chapter and verse, and airlines and their employees have WAY
more regulations to deal with than we do. It's not surprising that on
occasion, they may know the rule, but can't tell you exactly where to find
it. If it bugs you so much, get an unabridged copy of the FARs, and the
next time something like that happens, spend the rest of your time looking
through them to verify it yourself.

Pete