Originally Posted by
chriswiles
I think you're misunderstanding my original point which was: that in CE crew tend to give you more slack with your cabin luggage which is partly why I upgrade. Whether this is unofficial or not, you're less likely to have to volunteer (or be asked) to put cabin baggage in hold than you are in economy. I always assumed this was part and parcel of the CE 'extra baggage allowance', again whether it's unofficial or not, crew seem to give CE more slack.
That's why I'm saying it's somewhat vague as from my experience CE flyers tend to get away with more cabin baggage on the plane than you would in economy.
You are incorrect at least in how you've phrased it. The allowance is the same. The point is that in ET you get
less than your allowance as you will often be asked to check things that could be brought within the allowance (eg a rollaboard). I also travel in CE at least in part because I don't want to get less allowance than I'm (theoretically) entitled to and play Russian Roulette with my valuables. But the problem is not a different allowance, it's that everyone feels the need to use their allowance (as opposed to everyone having an allowance but the average use being far less than 100%) in part because of poor luggage handling; while it used to merely be slow, it's now actually risky.
These days when I fly incoming to LHR I'm nearly always on a connecting flight so have a perfect excuse not to gate check (along with a whole pile of DYKWIA stuff like being in J+, group 1, GGL etc). If I am breaking a journey in London I'll do LCY where it's merely occasionally horribly slow.