A TRAVEL expert has revealed the infuriating reason why you should always queue up to board your plane as soon as possible.
Many people often enjoy grabbing some food and drink before taking a relaxed stroll to the departure lounge.
But some flyers insist on being the first passenger at the gate
Travel writer Ben Groundwater officially labelled himself as one of those people, but he insists it is for a very good and logical reason.
With flights, accommodation and everything else in between already costing an arm and a leg these days, the last thing people want to do is pay extra for something they feel they don't need to.
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The cost of paying for checked luggage, coupled with the fact some people simply don't trust airlines with their possessions, means more people solely rely on carry-ons for their trips.
However, it's becoming more frequent to see almost everyone on the same flight bringing some form of hand luggage with them.
And so, with space at a premium, passengers are left fighting one another for hand-luggage space.
For this reason, Groundwater concedes that it is vital to board as early as you can in order to guarantee some space in the overhead lockers.
He said, via Stuff: "I sometimes overhear people grumbling at all the passengers battling to queue up well before the boarding announcement.
"'You’ve got a reserved seat', they mumble, 'there’s no need to be the first person to get on'.
"But what they fail to acknowledge is that you might have a reserved seat, but you don’t have reserved hand-luggage space.
"And if you’re one of the last to get on the plane and you have a wheelie bag that needs to go in the overhead compartment, you’re going to struggle."
Fighting for somewhere to place your carry-on luggage is just one of the stresses of boarding a plane, making it one of the modern-day issues of flying.
Whether it's fellow passengers barging in front of you or someone taking up all the available space with their belongings, there never seems to be enough room in those overhead lockers.
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But people insist on refusing to pay for checked luggage in order to save money and avoid the increasing risk of your luggage being “misplaced”.
It allows you to save time both on departure, where you don’t have to line up at bag-drop, and once you arrive in your destination, where you can head straight out past the baggage belt.
"That’s why I do it," Groundwater said.
There are, of course, ways to secure overhead locker space, although there is no real strategy in doing so.
The best way is to be in an early boarding group, which usually means having a more premium ticket and having frequent flyer status with the airline.
