A most contentious subject this.
Business passengers, that's those whose salaries and tickets are being paid either directly or indirectly by you and me, seem to think that they have a right to take on board, as hand baggage, a computer, an overnight bag and a garment bag. Some, of both sexes, have pretty little handbags too.
It's high time that those who are nothing more than paid hirelings of the consumer should be subjected to the same stringent requirements as are the masses who find themselves sardined into peasant class.
Mind you though, when flying First or Club class on smallish aircraft such as the A 320 or the 737; it is not unusual to find the first couple of overhead lockers crammed full of crew baggage.
Not that long ago on a flight from A to C in the land of the camels; the hand baggage of one hirsute, hatted Hamerican and his much younger female in tow occuped three overhead compartments. I could have stuffed a decent sized crocodile into his camera bag alone, a very pretty piece of aluminum it was too - the camera bag, you understand! The result was that certain other Club passengers had to sit with their reasonable sized hand baggage on their laps, not only during flight but for take off and landing as well. Now that particular 'necessity' might or might not have been the fault, for want of a better word, of the cabin crew. But it seems to me that draconian measures to deal with such situations are long overdue. If the authorities in the police state that is England wish to devolve upon themselves the responsibility for hand baggage monitoring then I for one, were I cabin crew or handling agent, would be nothing other than happy to see jurisdiction for this aspect of passenger inanity removed from my hands. Let the deturpation rest upon the head of another!
