Positioning crew beware

[Whatthef?]

I work for a large business jet operation and we regularly position crews in uniform by airline. Last week at EGLL (LHR) after check in I had my cabin sized trolley bag taken off me as I was carrying two pieces of hand baggage on an economy class ticket.
Well to cut a long story short the airline lost it and as I write 7 days later am still waiting its return.
I believe the problem has been caused by a new policy of the British Airports Authority.
So beware the bureacrats have spoken and pilots make an excellent example for those who's job, is to enforce the new rule.

[marlowe]

Well if you had to much cabin baggage what did you expect? just because you are in uniform it does not mean you get any favours if you worked for the airline you posistioned on then that might get you a favour but really you are just another pax trying to get everything and the kitchen sink in the cabin! ok rant over my pet hate pax cabin baggage!!!

[Consol]

Interesting, who took your bag from you? The BAA don't seem to have a right as your contract is with the airline and it is responsible. Also how does this fit with the policy of a certain low cost airline to cut checked baggage and let pax bring on two bags! I think you should follow this up more closely, it seems pilots are easy targets to annoy/humiliate/make examples of in the name of "security".

[ZFT]

You have my total sympathy over your lost bag – been there too many times, it’s no joke eh.

..but two pieces of cabin baggage!! I, Like Marlowe hate the bloody stuff, especially in economy. It’s cramped enough without other passengers taking advantage. One piece weighing x kgs should be enough.

[WHBM]

Originally Posted by Consol

Interesting, who took your bag from you? The BAA don't seem to have a right as your contract is with the airline and it is responsible.

Absolutely. Your conditions of carriage are with the airline. BAA are nothing more than a supplier/subcontractor to your airline. You have not contracted with them for anything (except for things you buy directly from them like car parking). But security and baggage handling is part of what you pay for in your ticket.

Restrictions on baggage are driven by complaints about queues for the checking process. There is no security reason why bag numbers should be limited, there is nothing in the various security acts about limiting bag numbers. It is purely a cost-limiting measure by BAA to avoid employing extra security staff.

Note that if you go through security but then buy 20 large bagfuls at the BAA duty free shops beyond, that is of course FINE with BAA ! Maybe not with your airline of course.

If your airline has signed up to a contract with BAA to follow their procedures with their passengers, but has not passed this condition on to you in their contract of carriage, then that is the airline's problem not yours.

[ExSimGuy]

[RANT]Bloody morons with over-size, over-weight carry-ons [/RANT]

One of my pet hates when flying (SLF).

WTF, On what grounds did you think that you were exempt from the airline's (not your own airline) carry-on rules? There are a couple of obvious reasons for the limit:

1. There's only so much space in the overheads, and I hate nothing more than "slip-shod" airport staff who allow some moron to fill a complete locker with his enormous "wheelie" (if it needs wheels, it's probably too heavy as well!) so that myself and the other guy in the row have nowhere to store our laptop bags.
   
2. With the current security situation, and the apparent shortage of x-ray operators (either that, or half the x-ray machines at LHR are out of order - but it never happens at a lot of other airports) long queues of pax trying to get from check-in to departure lounge should be expected to have only one bag, while you, as an example of the airline, can have more, and hold up the pax behind you while your (more than one) bags are screened?

I know it's nice not to have to wait for the checked baggage to arrive at destination, but if you, like me, have to carry more than one "weight and size limited" bag, then I'm afraid that you have to "set an example to the rest of us"

Sorry mate, but not a lot of sympathy.

[Backtrack]

1) Where does it say that the extra bag was removed to the hold by the BAA? It doesn't. Whatthefuk only states that he believes 'the problem has been caused by a new policy' of the BAA.
2) What does it state on your ticket? Does it state only one item of hand baggage permitted in the cabin (or words similar to that effect) or is there an additional comment that aircrew in uniform can bring as much as they like, because we don't give a rat's ass about Joe Public?
I'm sorry you bag was subsequently lost - happens all the time - but have no sympathy for you trying to gain an advantage over other pax just because you are aircrew/in uniform.
Frankly, you should know better & set an example. Rant Over!!!

[hapzim]

Was the bag barcode tagged and did you get a receipt for it from your carrier.

Or is this the latest tealeaf scam

I position as crew in uniform all the time and just accept that anymore than one bag it has to be checked in and waited for at the other end. Real pain when bumped on a standby ticket and you the have to try to retrieve your checked luggage but not as an arriving pax. Immigration also struggle with the fact I havent left the country so havent got my passport out.

[BlueUpGood]

Folks..
This is a nationwide move by the DofT to speed up security by enforcing one piece / size restrictions. Security staff are to refuse entry airside and oversize/weight or extra bags are to be checked in with the airline.

I have sympathy with those who have become used to airlines turning a blind eye (WTF?). Until now any airline that strictly enforced the policy would ultimately lose custom. Now with security enforcing the rules, there is no negative impact on any individual carrier.

As pilots we may hate the carry-on but the bean counters were too afraid to tackle it on an individual basis. FWIW I think this is the perfect solution for all - once it become common knowledge WTF!

[marlowe]

I also posistion in uniform on other airlines and abide by there rules and regulations just because i am in uniform i do not expect any favours, i am just a pax to them who happens to have a uniform on. Handbaggage is just getting stupid these days pax do not seem to understand that you have only so much stowage space onboard regardless of A/C size! I try to get a window seat when ever i can not because i like the view but simply do not want a locker opening inflight and dumping its contents on me!

[radeng]

I wonder if the security lot have worked out that there's different rules for different classes of passenger.
Judging by the LHR chaos, it should DafT, not DofT. I know it's ultimately the fault of BAA (why is the managing director of HAL still employed?) but DafT should be doing something about it. Something like a £100 fine on BAA for each passenger who takes longer than 10 minutes to get through security. After all, they can do it far more quickly at ORD or PHX.....

[Anti-ice]

Exactly , for too long , people have conveniently increased the amount they bring onboard hoping the ground staff and cabin crew dont notice...
Its bl**dy dangerous, and im glad to see at last the issue is being addressed.

An average A320 for example has room for say 80 (SMALL) wheelies and an average amount of SMALL items that will fit under the seat in front...

More often than not, you get twice that coming on , plus laptop bags,suit carriers,rucksacks,shopping,handbags and large overcoats and jackets too - its impossible to get it all on,and many lockers are dangerously crammed.

Of course,many pilots/dispatchers refuse to take a delay in order to place these items in the hold - its anybodys guess where they end up then.

Lets hope this starts a new era of reasonable items being brought on, respect for other people onboard, and flights being able to leave on time rather than sort out mountains of excess handbaggage................

[KATLPAX]

Well, seeing how last year the airlines lost/misdirected 30 million bags, is it any wonder why PAX don't like to check bags? 30 MILLION!

I hate it as much as the next fellow watching fellow passengers come aboard with more than they can even lift into the bin, or ask why they have to gate check their trunk on wheels, holding us all up from an on time push. I think the airlines have to do a better job of tracking bags in order to get the public to trust the system, if FedEX can track a package clear across the world, the airlines should be able to do the same with my bags.

[EastMids]

A couple of weeks ago, an awefully "nice" BAA man at security at LHR T3 told me I couldn't take two carry-on bags onto a flight. I had openly displayed these bags and had them weighed, and had the airline's approval to take two bags onboard. I politely told the awefully "nice" BAA man at security that it was none of his business how many bags I took on board - that the airline had approved me carrying two bags, and the BAA's job was to security screen what the airline was prepared to allow me to carry. Enough said - two bags went through with me.

The BAA's job, as provider of screening services to its airline customers, is to screen whatever bags their customers want them to screen, not to impose their own limits. The limits the BAA are attempting to apply are merely a means to reduce the queues (and thus the blame / frustration) that builds up at check points as a result of them often not staffing all of the machines and detectors at peak times.

Andy

[cavortingcheetah]

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!

[Golf Charlie Charlie]

Originally Posted by cavortingcheetah

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.

Dead right there - or unread newspapers/magazines, or demonstration kit for safety briefings and so on and on. The airlines really need to think this one through as well. And then, because of that, your bags get moved by a 'nice' crewmember to a bin 10 rows down the plane - then try retrieving them against the flow on disembarkation.

[ironbutt57]

So what happens when you are positioning to operate a flight immediately and have no time/intention to enter the country and claim your check baggage, as you are to remain in transit???

[cavortingcheetah]

Good point that!

I'd postulate that since you are positioning you are on duty. Any time spent going through immigration, waiting at the carousel, collecting your bag and then getting airside again is duty time.
That's the watch out of your operations department? It has to comply with local laws as well as FDT limitations, does it not?
A fine kettle of fish which should afford much hair pulling to those beatific creatures in crewing who cut corners to the margins of the lunatic fringe.

I would reckon, in a nutshell, Brazil or otherwise, that it is not your problem.

[flyingbug]

EastMids,

I 100% agree with you.
The BAA is there to screen/security check bags that the airline has approved for carrying onto the aircraft. If you have two bags and their size/weight comply with the airline's policy, the BAA should have no business applying a "0ne bag only" rule. The BAA's security post should be properly staffed instead to help alleviate congestion/delays.

[cavortingcheetah]

You're quite right of course.
But, since 9/11, if not before, BAA staff would seem to view themselves as the constitutionally appointed interferons of the airborne travelling public.
Since most of them would appear to be of such limited intelligence as to have misread the instructional preamble for the entrance examination for non - commissioned officers, for such is, at the least, the role in which they must view themselves; then what on earth can one expect from those besides whose professional expertise Securicor guards would appear gifted?