Flyertalker001342

I tend to carry a lot onto airplanes, a large backpack with a computer and assorted other electronics, plus a roller bag. On my GVA-LHR flight on Oct. 3rd, we used a "bus gate," and there really didn't end up being any priority given as to boarding order once people got to the airplane. I was seated in CE, in 1C (a seat I've decided that I do not like much). All of the bins towards the front of the CE cabin were taken which forced me to put everything 3 or 4 rows back. This is actually a potential huge nuisance, if the "flow of traffic" on disembarking is moving in the opposite direction to the how you must move to get your carry ons. It basically forces you to jump up like a jackrabbit the second that the airplane stops moving, in order to be sure that you will have access to your belongings without having to wait for most or all of the other passengers to disembark.

PUCCI GALORE

I like 1C - and try to snag it when I can. I will tell you why. My husband cannot eat pasta of any description (no he is not allergic but it make him vomit) so I need him to be asked first and he can be sure of not getting pasta. I like having a drink soon after take off. The locker thing is tiresome as so often it is full of crew handbags or roller bags. I think that it is thoughtless of the crew as often as not. I'm sorry but paying customers come first - that is what we were taught.

krispy84 I think that the locker opposite applies mostly in CE as in CW you have proper storage space around you.

What does drive this girl insane are people getting to their seat and start faffing around getting out the Ipads, headphones, books, magazines and inflight toys and blocking up people trying to move down the aircraft. I am far from congratulatory to people who clearly have been shopping, barely made the flight and come aboard and start kicking off about where to put all their stuff. I had that the other day. When she whined where she was going to put a large Fortnum shopping bag, she will never know who close I came to telling her. My husband suggested that it may indeed have fallen out had she heard or heeded me.

Steve in Olympia

If only the airline had offered to check your multiple bags......

Flyertalker001342

Interesting thought, since obviously as a GCH I could check more than the 1 bag I do check.

I don't trust any airline in this day and age, to get my bags to me on arrival from any flight. One only has to read posts on this forum to learn about people who have been separated from their bags, for WEEKS and in some cases forever. I personally believe that it is prudent to carry on essential items plus a couple day's worth of clothing changes, the latter being necessary in the case where you are not reunited with your luggage at the end of the flight. And I don't care if the airline is obligated to pay me some modest sum of money for the inconvenience of being separated from my belongings. The last thing I want to do in some strange city is go shopping for underwear, other clothes and necessities. I also carry fragile electronics with me and don't trust them to be checked in, even if they could be checked in without violating requirements not to check items containing lithium batteries.

PUCCI GALORE

every word. I agree 100%. You like I have realised the time spent at the baggage carousel are hours of our life we will never get back. Indeed, it does take discipline and an acceptance that one will need to go to the washing machine from time to time. Nevertheless I travel everywhere with one roll of board case of the correct dimensions and a personal item. If I can do it anyone can

Cyberhacker

Not in Group 1? The shame of it.... ;-)

Flyertalker001342

I'll do this always for a 2-3 day trip, unless I intend to carry something back that can't be taken into the cabin (like the steak knife set I bought at a hotel/restaurant in France recently; my favorite artisanal gin from a small French wine producer in the Maconnais; real kirsch, essential for making cheese fondue and almost impossible to find in the Western USA).

I really hate laundromats and although they are essential for a longer trip, I prefer to limit the number of times I need to set foot into one.

moondog

Do the hotels you frequent have in-room sinks?

SKT-DK

Can you teach my other half, by any chance? I am like you, always carry-on only - but she always insists on checking in what feels like a shipping container I am dreading our trip through LHR with checked luggage in a few weeks. Are we taking bets on whether luggage will make it?

Lefly

My husband hates carrying cabin bags / trolleys around, he want to check every bag we have (apart form backpack and computer bag, of course)
Well, after having all the luggage delayed before a road trip around Arizona, being forced to shop for everything, and finally receive the bags back only the day before the flight back home... he relented.
Now I can have at least a trolley with us on the plane, in case the checked luggage don't show up again.

When I fly alone on long haul/multi city itineraries I tend to check luggage only on the return, where there's no problem in waiting some days to get the bags, and also because often I come back with more stuff than when I left and I need an extra bag for that.

PUCCI GALORE

Like anything, it requires some forethought and discipline. One is dealing with size and weight. My husband is a champion packer. The one thing that takes up space are shoes. The other great boon are the packing cubes.

However the benefits are enormous. Nothing gets lost due to misleading. Nothing gets stolen. When you arrive you pass immigration and go. The other day flying from Nantes to Madrid with Iberia (Air Nostrum) we checked two bags as we moving a lotof things to Spain. It was a Saturday morning in T4 when we arrived. We waited at Carousel 10 where allegedly the bags would arrive. We waited 30 minutes. Customer Service in the Baggage area was Iberia par excellence. Nobody cared less. More notice would have been taken of a dead goat. Finally a contingency went over and started kicking off. It transpired that the bags had gone to,Carousel 19. There they all sat and had sat for so long that the Carousel had stopped moving. It reinspired me that checking bags is akin to playing Russian Roulette

moondog

I'm a big fan of airlines that don't allow anything bigger than a modest backpack or laptop bag in the cabin (duty free bags are also fine). This simple restriction results in painless boarding/disembarkation and eliminates bin wars.

PUCCI GALORE

Fine. Do share who these are so that I can avoid them.

Flyertalker001342

What makes more sense is the installation of those bigger bins, that allow bags to be placed on their sides. These increase overhead bin space by 30-40%, depending on how efficiently they are used. Alaska Airlines pioneered these, and many other airlines are following suit. If there is plenty of onboard space, a lot of the problem disappears.

Certainly, if essentially no carry-ons are allowed onboard, you can board and empty out a plane faster, than if people are retrieving bags overhead. I'd estimate the added time needed on disembarkation at (maybe) 2 minutes, which is well worth it.

dougzz

You need to adopt a protocol with clothes that’s more than binary. Between clean and dirty are 8 stages of tolerable 🤗