Why to have hand baggage
 

Bealine stated in the big thread about the current situation (which is why I did not wanted to put it in there).

Plesase note Bealine, I do not blame you at all personally and I hope you do not take this as such, your statement is something I take as what your colleagues probably think too.

I disagree. There are things I want to have with me on the plane and not checked in.

For example having a bag, not even close to carry on limits on a recent flight with stuff for overnight stay saved me 3 hours of waiting - the bus driving back to my hometown leaves at 7 or at 9 at night, and I could only make it without checked in luggage, as it takes more than 30 minutes to get luggage off the plane.

Waiting an hour for my bags at LAX more than once does not leave me with the feeling that checked handbags is such a good idea.

But much more important:

Because there are items I do not want to travel without, or give to check in because of thieves and rude handling of luggage or as insurance will not replace nor cover the loss.

My digicam or even worse my laptop will not go into the checked baggage. I am not so connected to my mobile fon, which I forgot most of the time anyhow.

Noise reducing headset is important to me as are the medicines because I do get sick from the sound of the engines and I am sure you do not have earplugs for all of the people available. The mp3 player delivers me the programme I like listening to. (My last trip had a total of 24 hours including all layovers etc in travelling time, 13 of them in the airplane itself)

You don't provide me with the amount of water I like to drink on the airplane and I do prefer bottles.

You don't always have the snacks available and with some US airlines, they 'rob' you when you travel and need to buy food or soda (not so with ba).

BA lost my luggage before an important conference and only barely got it back in time. Friends of mine spent three days in the same clothes as they where on important meetings and could not just get some clothes somewhere, they where promised those bags every hour. Since then, I travel with basic additional luggage for underwear etc in case this happens again.

These are just the ones most important to me.

I don't agree on commercial pressure, but we can agree that safety is something we all want to have. On the flip side I have to say: If you want safety as well, you need to provide me with possibilities.

If I strip down everything from the above, I can sum it up:

- make luggage handling faster and more secure

- Provide me with at least basics like water, juice and some food so I do not have a need for bringing some of my own. Special needs set aside, but I find it okay that if you want to bring your food into it, to be specially scanned (like the ones where you have to taste it).

- provide me with a bigger selection to choose from for films or audio as well as noise reducing headsets in my class of service which are working. btw the ones in biz class sucked, I will use mine next time again.

- Provide me with a secure space which I can use like a locker. I do not need to have it with me the whole time, but I want it to be secure and near me. I do not mind bringing this somewhere, lock it in a special box and only get it back when leaving the plane directly, but I will not want to bring this in checked luggage with the normal ones.

- needs during layovers can be solved by money (aka buying at the airport. stores will love that and for BA this will make them happy as well as people will strive for lounge access).


Do I prefer the safety of my laptop over my own?
Of course not.

During my 2 flights to the US I noticed especially at heathrow absolut STUPID ways to do security without any reason: Lines at scanning where long and I had to fight for my 3-4 boxes with the staff - I *know* that they want me to put my laptop separate from my jacket from my bag and I could have given that way long before instead of having to wait until the person in front of me is through.

As we have those lines, why can'T you give me more information on what is or is not allowed? When travelling standsted, I do see videos as well as hints and sign for example about sharp objects.

If we want carry on restrictions, why can't we have more intelligent measures than having somewhere near the gate the little sign "your belongings have to be fit in this".

It is not about easy but about working compromises.

Otherwise naked passengers without clothes are next.

Nicole

I sympathise with some of your views, nixande

Aircraft cabin design is a compromise between the needs of the airline and the passenger. The airline wishes to:

• keep fares competitive
• provide a safe travelling environment
• make a profit

The passenger is looking to:

• have all the comforts they expect at hand
• minimise personal inconvenience

The problem is, there are 100+ passengers on each flight, each one with a different interpretation of comfort and convenience. Some will try to, or expect to, breach the rules, affecting the comfort or convenience of others around them.

To me, security is one of the great levellers - no-one can argue against security measures when they apply evenly across all passengers. And if security restrictions cause a few more selfish passengers to learn the error of their ways, then this can only be a good thing for the future.

Passengers also want competitve prices! :o)

But evenly isn't evenly. I do want to have my notebook with me for insurrance reasons and for work on the airport - I do not mind it so much being locked away. So disallowing this will be evenly enforced - but not bother me as much as somebody who is flying.

What I think is okay though: If you have more stuff, you are more likely to get screened. Like having bags for checking in or not.

I think we can agree especially that this is not a black and white topic and there is no easy solution.

Well, if this is the argument to make sure that all laptops, cameras, etc are surrendered at checkin or begin removed from the passengers reach during flight then it should be like that. All we need to make that a reasonable trustworth system are three simple things:

* Airlines must clarify that they are actually responsible for the items and liable if there is loss/theft/damage, as well as providing responsible handling for fragile and expensive items.

* A piece of paper from the airline categorically stating that the airline picks up the tab for things the insurance companies say are not covered if checked in.

* A system that provides tracking and guaranteed speedy delivery of said items for those that would otherwise do a day trip for work and would not wait an hour for their luggange, thus loosing the advantage of what used to be hand luggage only travel.

Should be simple to fix, get back to me when you have it sorted?

-A ;)

Ack. Also, it could increase sales for them: Give a keyboard in Biz class and net access for people to be able to use a computer during flight, then they can work a bit.

(Use keyboards with displays as keys for differnt international versions).

Make some seat out of biz with this, cash in extra. ;))

Yes, a system supporting four kinds of remote working services, six different VPN-clients and other necesary bits to connect to the office. Most company can't keep their own systems stable, let alone supporting a ton of other configs. :)

Now, then lets use the very genric suring thingy to try and use hotmail for working with company material and let's see how quickly someone from my secrity oeople gets onto me for handling customer information insecurely. :)

Staying legal with that kind of a system reduces you to playing solitare, and doesnt work for transit time. I'm sure BA would love to commit half their lounge space to terminals... :)

I'll stop trolling, but let airlines be airlines, not IT-solution companies, we're paying for too much not-so-clever solutions already. Either the airline industry provides an environent that suits their paranoia and lets businesses get on with their life, or they will loose business.

-A
I

It is not trolling. It is a nice roundup on why the world is not as simple as "well, let's not have people use their systems." And who wants to work during a flight anyhow, right? ;)

I'll just do a quick reply before I nip into work. Of course I'm not advocating getting rid of all hand baggage, but it needs to be kept to a sensible, manageable level. Peoples' lives and health are far more important than a wee bit of inconvenience.

If you re-read my posting, I did actually say that we need, as an airline, to make the delivery of checked baggage slick and quick. If we could reliably reunite you with your bags within 5 minutes of your arrival in the baggage hall, I doubt very much if you would object to checking your bag in.

It is the uncertainty of waiting, sometimes 60 minutes, for your bags only to find they were never loaded in the first place that causes passengers' objections - even those that have never had a bad experience themselves, but have read about others.

Your convenience v your safety v the safety of other passengers will always be a major bone of contention. The capitulation of our proud British airline, the CAA and the DeTR to the greedy maw of commercial pressure by allowing heavy cabin baggage after advocating safety for so many years sickens me.

At least, for a temporary period, our aircraft cabins will be safe.

I did read that. :) And I agree on the heavy things as well as passengers with many bags, that should be insisted on as well.

And reagarding the heavy bags - they *are* dangerous when left in overhead bins, I have seen that enough times by now. :(