American Airlines Moves Bag Sizers from Gates to Check-In Lobbies

American Airlines flyers arriving at their gates on Monday morning will no longer see the metal bag sizers that passengers have had to use to check to make sure their bags fit in an overhead bin.

American on Monday moved those sizers from their gates to the airports’ check-in lobbies, news first reported by View from the Wing.

The move does not mean anything in American’s actual baggage rules—the size restrictions will remain the same (45 linear inches). Instead, it pushes the burden from flight attendants to passengers, which has already technically been the case, to make sure bags will fit in an overhead bin.

It is not a huge change, and apart from the sizers going from gates to check-in and the boarding process moving a little faster, what it probably does is allow some American Airlines passengers to either avoid having to awkwardly push and pull their bag out of the sizers in front of a flight attendant, or get their bag that might not fit in a sizer but can be shoved into an overhead bin on a flight.

It also makes some more room in front of a boarding gate, areas that are becoming increasingly crowded as more travelers opt to hover around the gate, awaiting their boarding group, and hoping to get in on time to not have their bags gate-checked by flight attendants.