paul4040

The fact that someone's turned up 50 minutes early for a flight lasting about 30 has made me chuckle.

shorthauldad

I was at AMS yesterday waiting for the last LHR flight and the GAs were roaming around just as boarding started pouncing on unsuspecting pax and telling them that the aircraft didn't have room for all the hand baggage and that they would have to check their bags.

Some of these pax had only one modestly-sized bag but they willingly handed them over anyway

If you're got nothing better to do with your life than wait at the baggage belt, this is a sound strategy.

For those of us with other plans for our remaining time amongst the living, I won't be voluntarily handing either of my cabin bags in for BA to check!

Hey!

Since the day I bought one like it, it's been with me on every trip. ^

BA0197

We did this at AA and it worked brilliantly. On services we knew that the aircraft would not be able to accommodate all the carry on bags (from experience), we would call people up to voluntarily check their bags. It solved the bag problem 50% of the time. I also would say that elites tend to not take us up on the offer because of the reasons you have stated.

If we started to board the aircraft and then found out during the boarding process that the lockers were full, we would stop the queue and require everyone to check in their large bag- full stop. If an elite was boarding late then, he, reluctantly was forced to check in his bag.

Leisure/occasional travelers actually consider our checking in of a bag a QUALITY service that goes beyond standard customer service. Little do they know they are helping us out. To them- carrying everything is a pain and we offered a free solution to that.

Your comments reaffirm my position that FFs do not help the situation of no space in the lockers and disproportionately cause a lack of space compared to the common leisure traveler. This is not a BA issue (plenty of other airlines have these configs on A320s), but a mentality issue of travelers onboard. The mentality of "let me not go to the baggage reclaim area and stuff everything in my carryon" have caused this problem- and the majority of people with this mentality are FFs.

In the traditional boarding scheme it has always been that the bog standard ET pax that board last get their bag checked in due to a lack of space. This has only come to light on this board because BA is actively inflicting this on people in the first few rows and that these tend to be FFs. Like I said earlier- this has been something non-elite ET flyers have been dealing with for ages. I'm not arguing that this is not how it should be, but just pointing out the fact that this is not a new problem. I also want to emphesise that I cannot blame the ground staff much at BA. I personally have never seen anyone been allowed to board with three items. I just really hope that everyone would listen to the GA or CC in the event that their bag has to be put into the hold instead of the quite customary response of "of I'll be sure to find a place somewhere in the aircraft later". IMHO it are these people- the people that refuse to proceed with the fluid boarding process- that delay flights.

But I do agree with your sentiments- as a FF. I personally, and perhaps from my experience, just don't mind checking in a bag to save me the hassle of security/the worry of it being put in the hold. There are of course times where I take my full allowance, but only if I absolutely have to.

corporate-wage-slave

On my LHR-NCL service this evening I checked every person who boarded after me to see whether I thought they were breaking the hand luggage restrictions.

I counted 132 passengers I could see clearly, there were a few more passengers than that, but either they boarded before me or I didn't get a clear view due to bunching by other family members.

Of that 132, I saw 7 passengers with 3 bags or more. Only 2 looked like they were well over the limit: one of these 2 passengers had 5 bags! Another had what looked like an oversized cabin bag, a large "personal bag", plus a plastic bag of shopping.

The other 5 were technical breaches (e.g. a plastic bag of duty free, when their other bags weren't so big); One was a MF off duty crew member - hat bag, standard BA handbag and a medium holdall - I suspect in volumetric terms she was taking less space than my single bag, the MF hat bag is not big.

Five passengers had no bags at all.

Most passengers only had 1 bag.

The service wasn't completely full so no extra bags needed to go into the hold, but some of the front passengers were unhappy their bags went further back than they would like.

So my take on that single sample is that on the whole it's not really baggage breaches at issue here, the 2 worst offenders weren't a big factor here. 125 of 132 passengers were fully within the rules.

BA0197

This is quite interesting. Firstly- shame on the GAs for not catching these people out. It is probably true that BA need to reaffirm this to their gate staff.

A few points though:
-Airline staff, in uniform, are not subject to the two piece rule whether deadheading or commuting
-Now, in the USA, where the FAA is the regulator, it is against FAA policy to allow pax onboard with more than two pieces of luggage. If an FAA inspector were to catch a staff member allowing more than two items onboard, he/she would be reported and the airline fined. I do not personally know the CAA regulations regarding this, but this to me is a big no no and I'm surprised it was that frequent. I gather from this that the CAA does not regulate how many bags go onboard (which in itself would be quite concerning from a load/balance point of view- either that or BA are just flaunting the laws).

I'm on a mission now to find the CAA policy about this.