What's more annoying are people who carry on suitcases and can not physically place them in the overhead themselves. The FAs won't help them since the airlines don't want worker's comp claims. Then the usually vertically or strength challenged person starts asking fellow passengers for help. It's hard to not help someone but I wrenched my back getting my bag out of the overhead once and I'm not about to do it again. I checked my bag to protect my back and they should have checked their bag too.

TF:cool:

I hate checked baggage for the very reason you mention. If the airline's baggage mishandlers do not break what is inside, they will probably damage the bag itself. And if not that they will lose or delay it. Checked baggage is really a crapshoot. I pack light and carry on. I also despise wasting time waiting for checked baggage. I recently had a connection in Milan that the time for checked baggage or not meant whether I could make a convenient train to my final destination or have to wait for an inconvenient late train. I carried on and made my train.

ONLY if airlines have to pay us when they break things or delay a checked bag. Checked baggage SUX!

Perhaps that is part of the motivation behind Asian airlines' 7kg carryon bag limits.

Dang. I came in here hoping for funny tales of inappropriate carry ons, but instead find the usual complaints, recriminations, and statements of virtue.

And I was all ready with a tale of a diminutive passenger who'd managed to convince every Continental Micronesia employee he'd encountered (even the ones he wasn't related to) that the definition of "carry-on" could be stretched to include a new-in-the-box enterprise-grade laserjet printer. I mean, how could he be denied? He'd carefully attached loops of packing tape to the sides to make handles so he could...carry...it...on. Ergo, carryon! And when standing on the armrests of his seat still did not provide him a lofty enough platform from which to cram the printer into the overhead bin, a nearby fellow passenger would see his plight and assist!

+10

I fondly remember a BA flight from LGW to KIN about 12 years ago. At the time there wasn't the BAA clampdown on carry-on luggage sizes that there is these days.

This was my first flight to Jamaica and it was an experience. Evidently passengers on this particular route routinely failed to declare the true magnitude of their carry-on luggage at check-in. Little did they know though that it is very hard to pull one over on the British :D

At the end of the airbridge just before the aircraft door, a checkpoint was in place and a number of BA staff were confiscating oversized items from often irate passengers. A number of baggage handlers were lugging these items (full size suitcases, boxes etc) down the steps and arranging their placement into the hold.

Until then I'd never ever seen such drastic measures employed for any flight I'd been on. I amazed the BAA allowed these passengers to take these items though security.

Another first - the passengers in economy drank the galley completely dry of booze midflight! :eek:

I agree that checked baggage sucks (for several reasons) but that doesn't mean that the rules for carryon bags shouldn't be followed.

I was on a little CO plane from Harlingen to Houston (sorry don't know my models) and a couple brought on a normal sized suitcase with them.

The guy wasn't small, but it is not easy to hide trying to carrying a full sized suitcase into a little plane - not that he tried, I got the impression that they did this regularly.

They didn't even attempt to put it in a bin, they just put it in the gap between their seat and the seat in front. They were a bit squished but they managed to do it - not sure if the people in front would have been able to recline but apparently no one tried.

The FA didn't say a word.

Bag gauges are just there as decorations in some airports. If you ask me, this is that first or second luggage charge.
Makes no sense, but airlines seem to think that's the best way.

Returning ATL to JAX Sunday AM and had one pax in C with five pieces, four of which had to be stowed in F.

just wondering how in the world the moat dragons let them get thru with that mess :mad:

When I was, briefly, working at MAN, there were regular PIA flights to Karachi & Islamabad which were a real nightmare in for oversize/weight carry-on luggage.

First the check-in agents would try to filter out the larger items; usually without much success, as the usual tactic was to leave 3 or 4 items with the family members who had come to see the PAX off.

Then all carry-on luggage would be both checked for size & weight, landside, before PAX were allowed to pass through security; at which point you'd suddenly find that the single, small,item of hand luggage had given birth to a whole slew more boxes & bags.

Some of the items PAX on these flights would try to carry aboard were quite strange, to say the least, but the two that always stuck in my mind were the guys who, having already paid several hundred pounds excess, at check-in, tried to pass through security with a full size fridge.

When challenged & told that they'd have to sort out sending this item as cargo, their response was to ask why they should have to do this, before pointing to another couple of PAX who had turned up with a full roll of carpet, as carry-on.:D

Think the airlines got the baggage fees all wrong. They should have instituted a charge for carryons other than the 1 personal item, not for checked baggage. Charges waived for elite members and Y and above tickets.

Elites/high fare passengers would no longer have to worry about bin space or about boarding early to grab a spot in the bins. Of course then you'd have some people trying to claim a huge rollaboard as their one personal carryon...

And yes, it would result in worse stats on lost baggage and longer time at the carousel -- but have there really been any notable improvements since the checked baggage fees started?

Yes, there have.