rossmacd

Exactly this. Frequent business travel, usually under time pressure, is the reason why HBO is the only way to travel.

For leisure purposes, checking baggage is fine since there are fewer time constraints, and often I (personally) need to take sizeable/heavy diving equipment that simply would not fit in the cabin if attempting HBO, no matter what CWS says

LCY8737

Agree with the first bit, disagree with the second bit.

Sure, sometimes the bags of the last or 2nd last person gets gate checked. So it sometimes affects 1-2% of pax. For all participants of this forum it should be a lot less as Priority Boarding ensures that everyone is on board at least halfway through the boarding process.

I mean, come on people, if cws - who basically lives in the air - manages to never have a problem and intentionally boards last - what are we arguing about here?

In my view this is a perceived problem, brought on by the adrenaline rush during boarding. Take a deep breath and focus on the good things in life! A bag five rows back is not important!

dulciusexasperis

No one said anything about not being able to take a few essentials onto the plane with you. Medicines, a book, valuables, etc. all fit quite easily into a woman's handbag or a 'manbag' and they fit quite easily under the seat without taking up all your legroom. A hand bag of some kind may be essential but that is not the same thing as 'hand luggage' at all.

Yes, for those asking, I have had a job that required me to be somewhere on a Monday morning and somewhere in another city on a Tuesday etc. I still did not need to rush. It is an ASSUMPTION to think otherwise. If I had to be at a Monday morning meeting somewhere, I travelled on Sunday evening. If I had to be at another meeting on a Tuesday, I made sure I had enough time to get there. In other words, I was not afraid to say, NO I can't make a 10am meeting, it will have to be in the afternoon or on the next day. Frankly, someone who cannot manage their own time better than to allow themselves to try and schedule too much in too little time, is someone I would probably not hire to begin with.

Every individual is in charge of their own time and life IF they choose to be. What happens however is that most people allow others to be in charge or put themselves under time pressure. Being under 'time pressure' is a choice you make for yourself. The example by Smid is a perfect example. No one made you plan a 2 hour 20 minute connection time, YOU made that choice yourself Smid.

There is a reason why the term 'rat race' exists and all I read is how many have bought into it as being something they have no choice over. I retired in my early 40s and no longer need to work for a living. I didn't manage to do that without having to compete and do better than my peers in my field, just like anyone else does. They ran to catch a flight, I walked. They carried on everything and I carried on just a briefcase. So obviously being in a rush and under 'time pressure' and believing 'hand LUGGAGE' is an 'essential' is not a necessity for business success.

LTN Phobia

Ummm... I'd like to find a briefcase that fits comfortably under the seat in front of me without sticking out so far that it wouldn't be allowed to go there, in fact...

But more importantly I usually check my bags but still prefer to carry things in the cabin. It would not be funny if my laptop charger was delayed in my checked baggage, for instance, or make-up, or my toiletries for that matter. It wastes a lot of time if I have to source those things at the last minute due to delayed baggage.

Smid

I'll take the imaginary last train an hour later or the imaginary plane in the 3-10 hours before that shall I? Pull that £200 hotel cost, or £100 taxi home out of my own pocket. Sleep in the airport or the railway station?

How incredibly patronising.

It was HAJ (Hannover, BTW), but don't give me grief for being in a hurry on a plane delayed by an 1:20 on a 1:40 flight.

OverTheHorizon

Well we are clearly not going to reach a consensus

I was working for a mid-sized consultancy and had a youngish child. I was assigned a client with offices all over mainland Europe but none in the UK. The choice realistically was "take the assignment or get another job". Moving the family really wasn't an option so I spent 2 years as a weekly commuter. It was hard enough on my relationship as it was, getting home late on a Friday and leaving at 0500 on a Monday ... if I had chosen to leave on the Sunday evening, I know that by now I would be single

If you managed to stroll along and retire before 50, dulciusexasperis, then I salute you and more power to your elbow Many of us are not so fortunate

markle

deleted

LTN Phobia

That's just a document bag with 1/3 of the capacity of my handbag. Not my idea of a briefcase (too small).

Mountlodge

I'm with CWS on this. Depsite being Gold and reading all about who get's boarded first, I pride myself on being the last one to board (yes I'm the annoying Sh*t who keeps everyone else waiting!!). One day it I'll come uppance and be left stranded. But, until then.............. My modus operandi tends to be, if its a domestic flight then wait until the departures board is flashing 'Last call' then do a dash Usain Bolt stylee to the gate where I'm usually met with filthy looks from the boarding folk. Maybe this Sunday when I'm doing LGW-GLA I'll get tot he gate mega early and see first hand what all the scrum is about.
ML

corporate-wage-slave

Special case unfortunately: LGW biometrics are at the gate prior to the BA staff check, so the queue is to enter the holding area rather than boarding the aircraft itself. There is a fast track for Golds / Silvers to jump the biometric queue but even Ryanair struggled to get their priority boarding process to work in LGW South. Boarding however is fairly leisurely since the hold up at the gate entry tends to feed passengers one by one through the door. I would save this for something like LHR-EDI instead on a Thursday evening.

Dambus

Why not just reverse the pricing model and make hand baggage fares more expensive that checked baggage fares? (Or offer a discount for checking in a bag)?

I suspect many of those who bully their way into the overheads would also bite your arm off for a fiver (and might spend it on BoB!)

tmac100

In theory all economists can foretell all financial situations. We know what actually happens outside the textbook world.

I believe in brand loyalty and both *A and OW have treated me well as I strategically plan my flights with them. Not always cheapest, but I have reaped many benefits. IMHO, getting to the airport "early" just means LESS rushing at the last minute, and MORE time to relax at a "nice lounge" - like the TK one in IST, or the BA ones at T5. A comfortable seat, decent wi-fi, and nice beverages...

As The Eagles sang "..... every form of refuge has it's price." At my age, I am not interested in direct flights longer than 8 hours, nor am I interested in rushing about. My head is firmly attached and I like to saunter. Ask my colleagues

rssfed23

I noticed today the signs up asking people to check their compliant hand baggage into the hold for free on all non LH flights.



This just reaffirmed a process that I've been doing for months now.
Previously on a HBO fare you just had to say to the checkin agent that you got a text that morning asking you to check in your hand baggage on a busy flight and 100% of the time without fail they would check it in.

This meant you could do a CWS and board at leisure without worrying about overhead compartment space. For someone like myself even with priority it would still cause anxiety (as anxiety can often defy all logic) but by removing that bag completely and taking only my rucksack with essentials on it not only removes the source of the problem but also (in my possibly incorrect mind) makes me think that if I were to arrive 1-2 minutes late at the gate they would rather just let me on rather than have to go and find my bag in the hold and offload me (a process which has always seemed to delay us by a few minutes when I've been sat in the cabin while they do it to someone else).

To get all these benefits for free for the last year both at LHR and Outstations was great. Now that BA are actively encouraging people to do it so you don't have to ask if you can just adds the icing to the cake!

It got me thinking....this really is the solution to all of the problems in this thread:
Change the cabin allowance to be 1 piece of hand luggage only and make this the smaller item/rucksack that people currently consider the extra item.
I see no reason for objection aside from time waiting for baggage carousel. It means people can take their medicines/liquids/food/duty free/laptop/whatever on board while freeing up the overhead bins allowing us to put said bags there so we don't have to take up our legroom with our smaller item.

They could even give gold/CE travellers the current allowance as a perk. We'd have no more overhead bin anxiety resulting in all of the behaviours experienced by all of us here so often. It would be easy to police at security as well so not even a problem for the gate agents (while speeding up security for everyone involved).

Alas; even here there would be uproar though due to the aforementioned baggage reclaim time and risk of lost luggage. But in time; we'd all adjust. Would also give a real benefit incentive to those willing to pay for CE (or pay £30 for the privilege).

I really wouldn't be surprised if BA is starting to consider going down this route. For all we know these signs could just be the beginning of getting us used to the idea before a wider scale roll out. I for one would welcome such a change but I understand why many here would be unhappy and

As a side; does anyone know how long the signs before security have been there for? I've only noticed them for the first time today but normally use the fwing. It would make more sense to put the signs by the check in desks rather than just before security if you ask me as I can't see everyone willing to check in a bag be willing to go back to the desks from security to drop it off.
If these are new signs it would be interesting to see if it has any real impact on flights. Given most of the cabin space taken up by HBO fares is only taken up because people can't check in a bag now everyone can in effect check in a bag for free I would be surprised if it didn't help the situation at least slightly.

nallison

I like some of your thinking, especially regarding reducing the size of carry on baggage. It really has gotten ridiculous what people take on board. When theyhe space can only carry what half of passengers bring on board the system is clearly broken and it needs to be explained to people that by bringing huge carry on you are denying others space. Of course, I am aware this is the airlines doing by charging for checked luggage. I am sure many hand baggage only Pax would rather check a bag than lug it round the airport if they didn't have to pay for it.

Budget airlines need to encourage carry on to help turn around times because of the time to load and unload the hold. This isn't a problem for BA with its more generous turn around times and containerised operation.

The only solution is as you say reducing carry on size. Pax should be told this is public transport and you are sharing the space with 170 people, seach person share is necessarily sized. It's the classic tragedy of the commons, everyone wants everyone else to take less without doing so themselves. (Generalisation trigger warning for those this upsets).

It couldn't be policed at security though; firstly it's not their job and they struggle enough as it is with the rather more important task at hand, and secondly with all the different airlines and policies it wouldn't be workable.

corporate-wage-slave

The signs have been there about a year now, here is a post I did in February and I know it wasn't the first time I had used that photo:
Hand baggage allowace

I think there are 2 flaws in your idea:
- the Basic fares are intended to be used in fare comparison and OTA scrape sites. So these are fares which are intended to be used in comparison with Ryanair / easyJet / W!zz. When they are giving fares around £30 to go to PMI or LUX they can't be making money on it, but need to keep in the market. Once people consider their needs, some very price sensitive passengers stick with HBO, some doubtless try it on, some end up buying Flex or paying later, just as they would on the UK's biggest airline (namely easyJet). However you do it, you have to step in step with the rest of the industry which tends to work on "less is less" on the whole.
- punctuality is king on BA and has been for a while and as a Terminal 1 veteran I'm very grateful for the progress made. For all the issues we've seen upthread, I can't think of a single flight I've been on where HBO has delayed the flight past departure time. Certainly in some cases the flight could have left earlier if cabin luggage was a better fit. On the other hand I've had a number of flights delayed due to people not being at the gate so their checked luggage has had to be discovered and taken off, 3 such flights in the last week out taking 15 to 30 minutes to resolve, plus another delayed 13 minutes due paperwork inconsistency. Admittedly this was a particularly bad streak but broadly speaking checked luggage causes more and certainly more severe delays than excess HBO. Adding more checked luggage will make it worse.

I don't think there are easy answers here and I think it would be a mistake to think that a few rule changes will alter human behaviour. Furthermore it isn't unique to BA.