milepig

This is too funny, whenever they say its "on" it either isn't working at all for me or shows laughably wrong information - on my last 3 flights ex-Europe it starting with the "in flight" time showing in the 7-8 hour range. Why am I not surprised that it was on when they said it was off!

Tor Viking

I flew IAD-FRA yesterday and the map and channel 9 were fine.
A lady was also permitted to do her "business" 20 minutes before landing, so...so far so good.

dulcamara

Frau D and I are doing RDU-IAD-FRA-BCN-SVQ starting Jan 1. If the only painful leg is FRA-IAD on the return, I'll be happy.

dgcpaphd

What about the inconvenience to business travels who were told, repeatedly, by United Airlines, that there would not be a change to the carry-on policy (one carry-on plus one personal item)?

Most seasoned and loyal travelers do not like to check their luggage. The carry-on system that was (is?) in place has worked quite well for many years.

Based on what I read, the terrorist did not have two pieces of carry-on luggage. In fact, he did not have any luggage which should have been a red flag considering that he also bought his one-way ticket to the U.S. with cash. But of course, these issues were ignored by various agencies.

In addition to the convenience of not checking luggage, there is assurance that luggage will not get lost en route, that damage will not happen to the contents of the luggage and that airline employees will not be able to steal items from unattended checked baggage.

If the issue of airline employees stealing from unattended checked baggage sounds paranoid, do a search on this board and you will see many postings in connection with items stolen or lost from checked luggage. Google will turn up many more such reports and criminal convictions for offending employees.

Bottom line - if it takes longer to search carry-on luggage of passengers, the airline should start the boarding process sooner to allow for the stupid searches.

dcshungu

When this board went all rabid following TSA's unnecessary directives, I was in the minority in urging patience, even predicting that all of this would quickly become a footnote in the annals of FT. It is over, folks. Things have returned to normal (at the discretion of the crew), as is evident from the fact that your perceived inconvenience is no longer top news, and the steady stream of reports indicating that CH9 and/or the map were on during inbound intl flights.

Let's give it a rest...

peterjs

I personally am not bothered about channel 9 - or even the map - but far more concerned about being stuck in my seat for last hour, and no access to personal possessions.

"At the crew's discretion" means this is likely to be totally inconsistent in its application....and does nothing to reassure me...

dcshungu

I am 99.9% certain that if you had "to go" no crew would stop you...but I am also sure that this would do nothing to reassure you. Please do relate your experience the next you actually fly!

Diplomatico

What you're talking about has nothing to do with United Airlines. It's mandated by Canadian authorities for flights originating in Canada only.

tripaddict

Flying domestically the other day a FA busted out yet another new policy. Not sure if this has been in effect since before December, but my wife and I were sitting in the exit row and instructed to read the exit row credentials, which seemed normal enough. Then, the FA explained that he would come back and ask us about details mentioned on the brochure.

Half-way joking, I asked if it was policy to come back and ask about the brochure. A few minutes later the FA produced a printout dated Dec 09 with such instructions. I apologized for doubting.

Is this new? Is this what FA's have been instructed to do all along? The FA usually just explains the requirements and asks if we are capable. It felt kind of funny to be 'quizzed' by a FA.

mgm321

Now that the restrictions are basically at crew discretion, its much more important to keep United honest and make sure crews don't abuse their discretion and impose them unnecessarily (ie, ever.)

Please, if you have been on any flights starting today where any sort of 1hour-to-landing restriction was in place, post the details here and more importantly complain to United.

And UnitedPR, if you are reading, please make sure you communicate to your crews a company wide policy which does not allow for the arbitrary imposition of these pointless restrictions.

MsTravelBug

I agree! I was disappointed to see that according to United's website, the one-bag rule is now in effect at FRA and Brussels as well.

Link:
http://www.united.com/page/article/0,6867,53307,00.html

I'm also disappointed to note that despite the new rules limiting hand luggage, I've seen no mention of any plans to enhance protection of checked luggage.

river_rower

SAS had this on their 767's years ago, it was a fun thing to play with.

This summer I was flying Iberian (Yechh!) out of MAD and they had a tail-cam that viewed out over the aircraft pointing forward. So you had this eye-in-the-sky view of the aircraft as it taxied down the runway.

Sadly they turned it off once we were airborn...

German Expat

Curious how they picked those airports based since a lot of other European ones are not on the list. Maybe the specific airports asked for it because of not having enough people doing the manual screening.

exbayern

I don't think that it is (yet) a FRA but a UA situation, nothing on the M+M forum nor the LH site; Fraport only 'requests' passengers to bring no carry on or things that they truly only need on the flight, in order to minimize wait times, on their site.

http://www.fraport.de/cms/press/dok/...hafen_fran.htm

JenGal

SONOFA...!

I'm going thru FRA for my trip to CAI, both ways. Leaving in two weeks. I don't take huge carry-ons, but have my camera bag full of electronics and a small duffle. Now I will take a carry-on that is at the size limit and stick my two smaller bags in it. Stupid!

Thanks for the info though... maybe it will be gone in two weeks??