Or you can find yourself in another Catch-22 situation, which came after a court decision in a case involving another airline. A wealthy woman was flying from Palm Beach, Fla., to New York City. She had several million dollars worth of jewelry in a carry-on bag. She put the bag into the X-ray machine at security screening and it didn't come out the other end. She sued the airline and the courts ruled that under their contract of carriage the airline had absolutely no liability for carry-on baggage.
Bottom line is the rules are really stacked against customers.