Are baggage charges to blame?

[Sober Lark]

I traveled with KLM from Dublin to Lyon via Amsterdam. The Dublin to Amsterdam sector was Aer Lingus.

To cut a long storey short, because there wasn't enough space in the overhead bins the flight was delayed which in turn meant my connecting flight was missed and I overnighted in AMS.

Are overhead bins designed to offer sufficient room if each passenger arrives taking their correct quota of baggage, coats etc? In my case I guess they didn't and the overflow presumably lead to items having to go in the hold with the inevitable delay and missed slot.

[banana head]

In a word yes.
The traveling public don't like paying the ever increasing 'hold baggage charge' levied by carriers such as Aer Lingus & RyanAir - and so often attempt to bring lots of baggage onboard. This is facilitated by the use of electronic check-in kiosks and on-line check-in - so the pax carrying 2 large bags only comes to the carriers notice at the boarding gate.
This in turn results in a delay while the case(s) are tagged and hold-loaded.
In fairness - with the hold baggage charge up to €18 per bag now on Aer Lingus I cant' blame anybody for trying to avoid it. It's a complete rip off......

[Donkey497]

I wouldn't so much blame the baggage charges. If you have the misfortune to travel domestically in the US, the volume of carry on luggage has to be seen to be believed, even although (on the major carriers I've been on) there's no hold baggage charge.

I have personally seen a guy turn up at the gate with a friend & his girlfriend. Their luggage consisted of two computer bags, a tandem baby buggy loaded with various loose bits of baby paraphenalia, four trolley cases (each the size of my Victorinox Werks Eurotraveller I'd checked in with my weeks worth of gear), a large box about eighteen inches square by two foot high, three rucsacs, a baby's car seat, a large shopping bag and several carrier bags. When the gate staff refused to let him board with all this crap, he went ballistic and complained the whole flight through. I just wish he'd tried to get his stack of "Carry-on" gear onto airside at a UK airport.

Some folks are just unable to play by the same set of rules as the rest of us....

Unfortunately, they're slowly becoming the majority.:eek:

[flyingfemme]

In the US the main problem is lost baggage........my beloved regularly has his checked baggage go missing on AA and their "customer service" has to be experienced to be believed. "If you don't like the service, Sir, you can choose another carrier". I'd attempt to keep it all with me as well!

[Donkey497]

Can't say I've noticed a particular problem with lost baggage in the US. In my job I've spent the past 2-3 years virtually commuting between EDI & IAH travelling via ATL on Delta & EWR on Continental.

In all this time, my own luggage hasn't made it onto my flight on one occasion [last September], but it was delivered to my hotel within three hours of me getting there.:ok:

One of my colleagues also found herself without luggage a couple of months previously. In part this was due to the baggage system crashing at ATL, and her bag was actually delivered within a day. Unfortunately, there are four hotels in the same chain within the same area and the local delivery company messed up and delivered it to the wrong one & promptly lost the paperwork. Despite this, Jo got her bag back in a couple of days with the help of the local Delta Customer Service agents & they also gave her a fair bit of compensation for her inconvenience.:ok:

From the number of trips myself & my colleagues take through various routes to the US, we've had very few luggage problems and they've been fairly quickly solved.

My own opinion on the great amount of luggage that US passengers take on board down to the way that they treat journeys on aircraft the same way as Europeans treat short trips on trams or buses - they're simply not in the habit of checking their luggage unless they're going on either a long business trip or on vacation.:*:(