How another airline does it
 

I'm guessing that people posting in this forum haven't seen Ryanair's ruthless efficiency with cabin bags. With the advent of internet check in, gate staff at Ryanair look at each bag and if it looks remotely oversized, the passenger has to put it into the gauge. At many gates every bag ismeasured and Ryanair enforce a strict one bag rule - ladies' handbags included. There are always a handful of people who have oversized bags who inevitably arc upabout having to pay extra for it to go into the hold, but the gate staff are implacable, and security is never far away. It works because Ryanair see hold luggage as a revenue stream, but I suspect also see hold luggage as a barrier to fast turnaround times.

For all of Ryanair's perceived flaws it's punctual, and I've never had a problem stowing my cabin bag.

Went to the states last year. Flew Virgin America and SouthWest domestic a number of times. Both airlines were quite ruthless in regards to overweight and or oversize cabin baggage. Had gate staff at aircraft entry door, removing bags, tagging and into the hold. No if's or but's. Worked well.

We are too politically correct now days, and afraid to upset the passengers.

over the last 5 years i have had a checked in bag lost/left behind around one third of the time. when my crew bag was put down the slide in sydney because "the plane is full, we'll put it in the hold and you can collect it in melbourne". it wasn't in melbourne,it was still in sydney at the bottom of the slide with the 5 commercial pax bags. i had to ring sydney to get them to check the slide. our bags turned up 3.5 hours late! i had only one night in mel. now i tell the punters in front of ground staff that if they give up the bag it will not be on the flight. i know this causes a fight between me ground staff and pax but until they stop closing up the hold so early or staff wait so long to put the bags down the slide i will continue this.
i am with the punters on this one all the way.

I completely agree, indamiddle. It almost seems that there is no system in place for luggage to be taken from pax at the gate.

If there is a system, it almost always does not work. Some ground staff appear shocked when I have a pax gate check their bag - some ground staff appear as if they have never had to do it before. They definitely make you feel like you are a rogue flight attendant and the only one ever to have gate checked a bag.

In my experience, Melbourne has (for the last ten years) horrific wait times for bags to turn up on the carousel. I have waited for my bag longer than the flight duration. After being burned a couple of times, I can see why pax push the limits.

We seem to have stamped out those ludicrous Samsonite suit packs with semi-rigid edges. That situation was getting beyond a joke. They would take up a whole locker on a 734. Suit packs with rigid edges are not allowed - but what makes it rigid for the purposes of cabin baggage allowance? I tried for YEARS to get an answer for cabin and airport management - NEVER did get one.

It doesn't matter if the pax have to wait an hour or two to get their bags, we make heaps more money than we used to by reducing staff numbers and putting them on part time contracts. Thats all that matters.

I'd put the 737 aisle at about 18inches... only because I'm 16 inches acros at my widest point (how many boomerangs is that again?) :E

Ditzyboy, I couldn't agree more, those 'suit packs' were seriously taking the p!ss! Even worse are the 'rolling wardrobes' that pax insist are 'suit packs'.... Err. it's got wheels and a handle- it's a bag!!

And WTF is with parents putting all their kids' cr@p up in th o/h when little Timmy's feet don't even overhang the seat. I make them put the 'Trunkie' (fark I hate those things!!!) under the seat in front. They bitch and moan but eventually they do it when I point out that all three kids don't need that space and they have 2 bags over their allowance....

In some cases, the gate checking is actually a good threat... if you want to make someone stow a bag under the seat in front.

I once secured the cabin, only to arrive in the galley and fid that while my back was turned some idiot had put their far too large bag in the galley, just sat it next tot he jumpseat!

End result... no space for it as it was far too large and we had to get the bridge back on. Pax complained no end but luckily we were backed up fully. After said pax called me a c--- in front of the ground staff, it was no wonder his bag never turned up in Adelaide when we did ;)

In a Curt Lewis article a couple of days ago, it stated that Boeing were redesigning there overhead bins to fit more in!!!! I think this just a band aid over the problem. Education and enforcement of the rules needs to be given to the public.
For me, I don't want 42 kgs above my head, ready to dong me when things start going pear shaped. If you look at the stats on the number of bins that have failed after an incident and I am sure that everyone would want it all in the hold, where it belongs.
Get the airlines to take control or get CASA in with one of there restructured audit teams to audit flights after they land at Sydney at rush hour. Prosecute the airlines for permitting and the pax for failure to follow directions. Maybe then, crews won't be blamed for allowing this to happen.

A couple of years back they WERE auditing bags; what, if anything, came of that I have no idea.

Back around 2006, there was a guy in Perth who was excellent at sending people back to the desk if the bags were over 7kg's. Recently when I was there, it seems all security guard at the entrance to the Customes queue is there for is to check a boarding pass and make sure you have a tiny plastic bag...!

I am a serial complier and get annoyed at what I see other pax loading.

BUT I think people are smarter than we realise - if you hump your unchecked portmanteau to the gate, it gets blocked and put into the hold, at no charge I understand. Whereas if you check it, you pay. Either way, it goes in the hold. Special Bonus: as a late loaded bag it presumably gets off loaded first.

This will make you smile then.
 

BBC - Travel - More space for carry-on bags : Business:E

Text of a letter which I sent to BA last week :

I travelled yesterday on BA 718 from LHR to ZRH. The flight was full and I was in the last 10 or so passengers to board. My seat was in row 15, less than half way down the aircraft but my progress and that of others was impeded by people blocking the aisles trying to force their carry-on baggage into the overhead bins. Ahead of row 15, the lockers were crammed to the extent that some could clearly not be closed, and when I got to my row I saw that the space under my seat was fully occupied by my neighbour's backpack. I asked him to remove it and he asked me where I expected him to put it (I was tempted to tell him!), the space under his seat being taken up with his 'computer' bag which was bigger than my standard sized carry on case. He also had a large bag of 'duty free' which was in the overhead and he became aggressive when I suggested he had too much carry on baggage.

It was clear that there was no available space in any of the overheads and a crew member took my single small carry on and stowed it elsewhere for me whilst other people continued shoving and arguing. It was clear that my delightful neighbour was not the only person, by a long way, to have significantly exceeded the allowance.

This is not a particularly unusual situation based on observation over many flights and many years

The crew handled this very well, despite the unpleasant attitude of some passengers, but should not be subjected to this on a daily basis. Nor should passengers like myself who try to respect, and not circumvent, the rules. Why are the clearly publicised limits not enforced? I appreciate that people can bypass the check in counters, but why, as the sole user of T5, are BA not able to get the security and gate staff to enforce the limits?

I should appreciate your comments and more importantly, some evidence of intention to act on this.

Flew domestically on our national carrier with the koru on the tail yesterday. From check-in area to the gate, several signs advising that carryon must weigh 7kg or less and will be checked.
Anything to do with the new fare structure recently introduced for domestic?

SAA had the right idea out of Joburg especially for the flights to certain west African destinations. There would be a ground staff officer with a fist full of luggage tags at the aircraft door. If your bag looked overweight or was too large they would take it off you, no questions asked and give you a baggage receipt.
I saw one or two try and argue but soon changed their tune when it was pointed out that as the hold was still open, their other checked bags could just as easily be removed. :ok:

Yes; that I saw on every Luanda flight.

Flew from OOL this morning to NTL, it was bucketing down, and right in front of me was one lady(with small baby attached) one enormous pillow, two little guys both wearing far to big backpacks, the lady was wearing two backpacks, ( I guess one was full of baby stuff). We were left stranded on the front stairs in pouring rain, as the pax up ahead were slowed down by the overhead locker stuffing, I saw the skipper have a quick glance and saw him shake his head, as his pax stood like cattle in the rain. OOL when are you going to be grown up enough to put arms in? I just grabbed one little tyke who was about to go A over H on the slippery stairs. If you are going to be one of the big guys, forget all the pretty gardens and cute coffee shops and get some arms in, it is 2012 last time I looked.

easyJet enforces the "1 bag" rule. They do use size as a criteria as well. If it's too big or too many, they'll take it and tag it plus make you pay £40 per excess item at the gate.

Baggage allowances | easyJet.com

I can't tell you how happy I would be to see some of the so called carry on being rejected at the boarding gate. It amazes me what people get away with as carry on baggage. I have had many occasions on dj sitting in row 3 with no one in that row but the overhead locker being full with big bags. It is the first row of economy but it seems that some lodge their oversized bags there then go to their seat further down the aircraft. I was told by a host that it was ground ops issue and not her problem. There lies the problem.

Now that makes sense... it would soon stop these problems!!

OK, how about all Captains brief our pursers that if they come down hard on oversize bags we will back them 100% and we expect them to do that. Maybe we will see some action then?

Framer, add to that briefing a chat with the ground staff/dispatcher at your gate that any delay due bags will NOT be accepted by the cabin crew and will be assigned a delay code due ground handling.

You will see a difference in their attitude to the bags and helping the CC at the gate, I assure you.

If you can all start doing this, it WILL make a difference. Of course you'll get a 'please explain' for the CSM from the higher ups because of the KPIs but if you lodge a safety report/ICAN regarding the oversized bags being a hazard... they can't exactly punish them now can they? You're just following the rules.

If you are on a B767 it gets a bit more difficult.

Let us know how you get on, minds are curious!!! :ok: