Overhead locker injury BA
 

The papers are reporting another overhead locker injury on BA. A passenger has been injured quite badly.

The max weight allowed was quoted as 25kg. This is almost inconceivable, will do some research.

Just checked the BA website and limit is 23kg which is the same as checked baggage !

heavy items are meant to go under the seat.

That wouldn't worry a weight lifter. It needs a lot more control from cabin crew.

It's often too late for cabin crew to take action. Passengers checking in online make their first contact with BA staff at the boarding gate. The ground staff at BA are seriously reduced and facing constant demotivational change. Getting large heavy bags off passengers at the gate causes delays which are attributed to the ground staff. Better to let the bags onboard and allow the cabin crew to have any blame for delay attributed to them. Departmental targets equal a broken approach to the required end result. A safe on time departure.

I have moved bags forward to be off-loaded only to find the door closed and the jetty retreating from the aircraft in the rush to sit in a queue for take off. Nobody wants the blame for a delay attributed to their department.

Look as though weight limit should be reduced and carry on bags weighed at the final check in for embarkation at the gate.

How did they determine the extent of the injury to the locker?
X-ray
MRI
Ctscan

This should never become a cabin crew issue and underseat stowage is not the answer unless I'm travelling on different (BA ) aircraft!

Sensible but enforced weight limits at SECURITY checks are IMHO the place to address this. If you're overweight you get sent back to check in which is the correct place to sort it out, not once on board.

Baggage weight restrictions.
 

Security seems to me a poor place to enforce baggage weight restrictions.

Take a hard look at the reason folk are carrying on >20kg "hand baggage".

Baggage slows you down, post 9/11 security has increased transit time through the airport drastically - no-one wants to spend any more time than they have to as part of the process.

Airlines are incentivizing SLF to not check in bags (especially Lo-Co's).

If you want to be serious about enforcing carry-on limitations, then you need to take a look at the amount of time spent in the airport and manage it more efficiently. How long does it take to ascertain that an item of luggage is oversize/overweight, initially might cause some problems but once SLF realise that rules will be applied, there will be diminishing returns..

So speed up the the baggage handling process, don't penalize SLF for checking in normal luggage, enforce the rules and/or re-introduce sensible limits.

There is the distinct possibility that by standardizing luggage and enforcing carry-on rules, departure times might be positively impacted.

Or alternatively you can have the bean counters work out how many personal injury claims it takes to offset the savings.

Law suit to follow shortly ?

Dunno:ok:

As for the passenger being "injured quite badly" ("seriously injuried" according to one account) Some reports went onto to say that he/she had recovered enough to leave for BKK on a flight the morning following the accident.........

Jack,

With internet, self check in and the like, where else do you suggest before the bag gets on board?

People also use carry-on luggage because they are fed up of luggage getting rifled in some countries & airports. I was amazed when I visited the US how much people carried on, was told this was partly why. I was flying Continental.

We actually don't know if this passenger was hit by an overweight/oversize bag, and whether or not it belonged to the victim.

Given the specifics of this flight - at LHR T5 everbody's hand baggage should be screened for size before conformance (i.e. going airside) and again at the gate....if you have two item the smaller items get a natty little yellow tag meaning you should put it under the seat in front....

As PC767 has said the backstop is the gate staff....

FWIW I have very recently seen a (BA) flight delayed to put hand baggage in the hold. If the commander doesn't sign the paperwork until handbaggage issues have been resolved it's kind of difficult for the ground staff to do a runner and pull the steps/jetty :ok:

The only problem with some of the "bright" ideas posters come up with is that it would add an extra hour to board an A380! As someone mentioned above, in recent times more and more airlines (including those legacy carriers who began to charge seperately for hold baggage) have encouraged passengers to travel with carry-on only. Consequently I place the blame squarely on them. Oh, and it should not in any way be the concern of the security personnel. Their heads are big enough as it is!

wiggy.

Agree with you, but it doesn't even matter if the Capt has signed and they have pulled the steps. They simply have to be returned to the A/C side for excess baggage to be relocated. After all, the Capt doesn't have to release the brakes!

Longer term solution maybe...

Why not redesign future aircraft interiors and put the luggage lockers under the seats....

#justsayin

Heavy bags
 

As an aside to all this, I recall an incident many years ago now, when the pax were queuing on the tarmac (in the heat!) and the engineer tripped over someone’s briefcase. He was puzzled that the briefcase seemed to be screwed to the ground and called me to check. It weighed a ton and was full of gold jewellery. The courier seemed a fairly slight chap but actually was a weight-lifter. We had to get load spreaders for the hold and I have often wondered what would have happened had it gone into an overhead locker, which was the original intention.:E:{
Prober

Slightly different angle on this but has anyone noticed the max load placard on the inside of the bins? At 23Kg a bag I can tell you that with three or more in say, an A320 bin that figure is likely to be exceeded by some margin. And those bins are attached to the structure of the aircraft...