Baggage Tag - "indulgence"

[andrewclaridge]

Hi all

Apologies if this is in the wrong place, will gladly be pointed elsewhere... first time poster...

Am trying to find out why the word "indulgence" would be printed onto a baggage tag? I'm familiar with airport codes on the tags etc but have never seen this before. I'll try and get a picture of it to help.

[frontcheck]

Which airline/routing?

[Cpt_Pugwash]

Is it a military baggage tag? The term "indulgence" was used for the provision of spare seats on trooping flights for serving military personell and MOD civil servants, on payment of a nominal fare and at risk of being bumped if an operational requirement arose. Not sure if it was used in the civil area.

[andrewclaridge]

thanks for your replies. I'll try and find out a bit more info and get back to you.

[4mastacker]

It is(probably 'was') used by servicemen( and their immediate famillies) as cheap method of getting to exotic places for a spot of leave when travel by civil air was either (a) non-existent or (b) civilair was too damn expensive for the underpaid serviceman. IIRC, the downside was the that the indulgee had to prove to his CO that he had the funds for a full price, single return fare should an indulgence passage not be available to allow the servicemen to be back in time for his first duty after leave.

Indulgees were always 'last on, first off'. The principle being, in the event of more than one indulgee needing to be off-loaded, the most senior rank would be offloaded first (officers being paid more than the erks, don'tcha know, therefore they could afford to fly civilair) although the practice was, at times, somewhat different. I know a lot of folks who indulged to different parts of the world, and often praised USAF crews for being more 'flexible' than the 'home' team.

Lots of servicemen used the scheme, some even indulged to the Falklands :ugh:. Someone currently serving might be able confirm whether or not the scheme still operates.


4ma

[Union Jack]

I know a lot of folks who indulged to different parts of the world, and often praised USAF crews for being more 'flexible' than the 'home' team.

The"Indulgence Flight" system still exists and, to be fair, the RAF also used to be very flexible too, although the potential must obviously have reduced substantially over the years for all too obvious reasons.

The principle being, in the event of more than one indulgee needing to be off-loaded, the most senior rank would be offloaded first

Which reminds me of a very cross senior army officer and his lady being offloaded to accommodate the RAF Tennis Team on a VC10 bound from UK to Hong Kong .....:ooh:

The US military equivalent is the more descriptive "Space Available" or "Space-A", which even merits its own website, namely Space A Air Retired Military Travel R&R (http://militaryliving.com/spacea/faq.html)

Jack

[andrewclaridge]

Thanks very much for those consise and interesting answers and for taking the time to reply. It is very much appreciated.