Flying Jacket

[wowzz]

Has anyone out there used one of these?
The flying jacket fooling budget airlines - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelaccessories/8638096/The-flying-jacket-fooling-budget-airlines.html)
Sounds good in principle, but I can't see how you can sit with it on for the duration of the flight, and what happens if you can't put your jacket in the o/head locker as the locker is full with your hand-luggage ?

[Torque Tonight]

It is attempts like this to circumvent baggage policies which will inevitably force airlines to weigh the individual passengers as well as their baggage - and imagine the outcry that would cause. Do people not realise that in the simplest terms, the weight loaded onto an aircraft affects its ability to fly. If every passenger smuggles an extra unaccounted for 10kg onboard, the aircraft may be 2 tons heavier than the crew think it is. With normal reduced thrust takeoffs, performance margins may only be a few hundred kg, resulting in overweight takeoff attempts. The potential hazards should be obvious. No doubt the couple in the article think they are very clever and will make lots of money.

[spannersatcx]

At the moment a weight is assigned to a male or female passenger, without weighing them, how many actually are this weight? I know I'm not, times that by 400+, and you will see that aircraft already operate like this anyway, so I don't see the problem.

The other day my hand luggage was weighed at 5KGs, after passing through security I added another 10Kgs in duty free sales, times this by 400+...............:eek:

[Curious Pax]

While taking your point Mr Torque, do you not think that the fault lies with the airlines who are trying to squeeze every last drop of revenue out of their passengers? It doesn't seem unreasonable that passengers then think up (legal) ways round the traps - if it means that the authorities then have to re-assess the standard passenger weights then so be it.

However as Wowzz suggested, the trade off for the passenger is cost saving vs comfort.

[Torque Tonight]

Spanner, an average weight is used for the pax and hand luggage. Most passengers probably aren't exactly the average, but overall the average works out about right. Of course if 200 obese people turned up there would be an issue. What the allowance doesn't account for is a further 10kg or so on top of the pax and their hand luggage. Airlines and authorities will be forced to address this either by banning, weighing or some other means, so I wouldn't buy shares in the jacket manufacturere right now. You don't see any problem, but all these extra 5 kgs add up. On a normal day the aircraft will takeoff fine and you won't notice any difference - if you have an engine failure at V1+1kt or reject a takeoff at V1-1kt and the aircraft is 5t heavier than the performance figures are based on, then it's going to ruin your whole day.

Curious, yes I think the hold luggage policy is the root cause of many problems, particularly excessive cabin luggage and consequent irritation when pax have nowhere to stow their hand baggage. Whilst understandable that pax may seek to circumvent the restrictions, that cannot be ignored for the reasons above.

[KBPsen]

The standard passenger weights used are average weights. There will always be some who weigh more and some who weigh less. That spannersatcx weighs more than the average weight used does not mean that the 399 remaining passengers does too. In fact, the more passengers the less deviation there will be between the actual and standard average.

Unless they all carry X kg of undeclared stuff in they pockets in which case the actual average will be X kg higher.

[radeng]

OK, so I'm a bit dim. Where does the weight come into it, except you don't actually know what it is? It is the same weight as if the bag was checked.....Do you actually add up the weight of the checked baggage? If you have 200 pax and they each have an extra 10 kilo, that's 2 tons more - but if they all weighed an extra 10 kilo, you wouldn't know.

I got charged excess baggage by American Airlines becasue I was 4 lbs over the limit. In one bag. Coming back, I had more weight in luggage but two bags, so no problem.....

But either you pay in terms of fare on a classical model full fare airline (although they have so many deals that they can be cheaper than a loco at times) or you pay for water, sandwiches, coffee, checked bags, early boarding and so on - not sure about better weather on your holiday but probably! - and it may not prove any cheaper at the end of the day.

[KBPsen]

It is the same weight as if the bag was checkedTrue, but if the bag is checked the weight is know to be there and will be used for weight & balance and performance calculations. People who wear their baggage on them and pretend it's just their jacket will appear on the loadsheet as a pax at standard weight. The weight of their 'baggage-jacket', as it is unknown, will not be used for either W&B or performance calculations but it will of course affect both.

[Torque Tonight]

Hold luggage gets weighed and has a weight limit. The average weight for pax+hand luggage is pretty accurate and gets reviewed periodically as the population gets fatter! Excessive hand luggage will also get weighed.

Smuggling on 10kg extra in your pockets will put extra weight onboard that cannot be accounted for and if this became widespread would probably force the issue of weighing pax and their possessions. Plus, these jackets will causes extra mayhem and annoyance in the cabin.

[PAXboy]

Firstly, people have been doing this for years - but on a small scale and very few per plane load. I've used overcoats and cargo pants on occasions.

Secondly, these folks think they are clever but it's short term and they will not be making a lot of money in five years time. Or even next year.

Thirdly, TT is right that the hand bagge problem will get worse, because people are going to want to store these in the bins. If they load a 5Kg bag and a 5Kg jacket - then the CC will soon start to notice and feed back to the carrier mgmt.

Forthly, as TT says, the weight IS a problem. Margins (of everything) are getting tighter and carriers naturally aim for 100% occupancy with less margin of error. If FC start assuming an extra half ton (or so) for safety and uprate the power settings for departure - are mgmt going to tweak their ear?

Lastly, the problem is not going to go away. Even in the good times, everyone wants something for nothing and in the deep recession - the more so. The problem is also of the carriers own making. They could have addressed this 10/15 years ago but chose not to because they thought it would frighten away the punters. Now they are trying to fix and it's going to be VERY difficult to undo all that learned behaviour.

Expect more temper tantrums to happen in the queue in front of you and in the seat next to you. Unfortunately, it may be you that has to do the protesting to the desk agent/CC about the problem.

[cavortingcheetah]

I've used a bush jacket with big pockets for years. All that's happened now is that some idiot with a big grin and a swollen head has publicized what is in effect a subtle abuse. It will now get stamped on. Yet another buffoon has queered the pitch for everyone because he thinks he's the clever part of the phrase of which he is in reality the second.

[Hotel Tango]

There are a number of initiatives that can make flying a tad more pleasant. I have never had the urge to share them with anyone. I don't want the masses to know about them and effectively sabotage my "perks". I imagine this guy went public just to sell his product.

[MPN11]

I will admit to considering some cargo pants to achieve a similar objective.

I just can't quite get over the obstacle that they would make me look a complete pr @t at my age ... as would the flying jacket.

I'm happy just tottering around airports looking senile and deserving of sympathy.
And flying BA Club, where size doesn't seem to matter that much, thankfully. :ok:

[L4key]

MPN11 - at any age you'd look like a complete cornet wearing one of those!

[radeng]

So what is the assumed weight of each PAX? The distribution is probably something like Gaussian in practice, so is a standard deviation assumed, or do you just say 200 pax at x kilo? For smaller aircraft, that could be dodgy - say 50% of your PAX are a Rugby team!

[baggersup]

Driving around Ireland the other day, heard the RTE1 radio station call in with a guy who has been making these jackets for sale.

Then the Ryanair director of communications (or sumsuch title) phoned in, was very positive about the jacket and said the airline had no problem at all with it, as long as it fits under the seat in front of the pax.

But if it has to go into the overhead with WITH the pax's carry-on, using up more space, then that's not okay. Then it becomes a second carry-on.

But otherwise he was pretty funny about it and said he thought the jacket was a great idea!

It caused a bit of head scratching among the radio presenters, but it made sense. The Ryanair employee said it's the overhead bin space they are focused on more, so as long as the jacket doesn't use more of that, then they don't care if people have them.

What the other airlines think, who knows....