Fly MayBe - wot a shower
 

I recently had the pleasure of a rare experience - an almost on time arrival from FlyBe both ways EDI / JSY. I did use them quite a bit on business - walk on, no bags, until this. They were doing so well, until check in coming home.

I'll probably be shot at for this, but my reading of 20kg hold baggage and 10kg hand baggage, means that the ticket they sold me entitles me to take 30kg (subject to Health & Safety max single bag limit of 23, 25?kg) on the aircraft, and they have done their costings, fuel calculations and weight & balance calculations, based on that 30kg maximum. The aircraft is not really bothered whether it is in the hold or in the overhead locker.

Arrive at checkin @ JSY, my bag 21kg, and Mrs jaycee's bag 22.5kg, both of us with minimal carry on (less than 9kg total), therefore well under the 60kg we had paid FlyBe to carry. I was less than impressed when the totally uninterested 17ish year old check in clerk http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/sr...ies/wbored.gif said that I would have to pay excess baggage (about 25 quid) for the extra kilos in the hold bags, or move some of the stuff from them into the almost empty carry on bags. This took about 5 minutes, by which time the queue was nearly out the door - oh yes, I forgot, the one other open check in desk was acting out the same farce!

I took it up with the supervisor at the ticket desk, :ugh:who unsurprisingly was of little help, and showed no interest, stating that it was clearly explained on their website. (Booked the flights as part of a package, so never actually saw the website)

Am I the only one who thinks that this is a blatant money grabbing extortion of the travelling public, by FlyBe. You buy 30kg you should not be charged if you have less than that 30kg. Even FlyGlobespan include your carry on in your total allowance.

There is a further final insult! The carry on bags still fitted the cradle they use for the size check - just, and weighed under the 10kg - obviously, but when we got on the Q400, with its slimline overhead bins, it was a tight fit, and the flight attendant fully understood our feelings towards her employer, :mad: when she suggested that we should considered less carry on, and more in the hold!

To reiterate what TightSlot has said - whilst you are permitted to take 30kg total on the aircraft, if the rules for the airline say you can only take 20kg in the hold, then that's what you agreed to when you bought the ticket, and should be expected to be charged for more than that.

I sympathise with you but every airline does it differently - and you should know that budget airlines like Flybe are very strict with their baggage allowances!

With you all the way jaycee46. Total lack of COMMON SENSE (yes, I'm shouting at the top of my lungs)! What is even more astounding, with all due respect, is Tightslot's post.

P.S. I don't loathe airlines (well, except for Ryanair of course ;) ), but I do loathe airline check-in employees with zero COMMON SENSE.

jaycee46Yes!!! You just got shot.

Some carriers allow you to share total allowance between Hold bags. Thus I might have 18 kgs and my companion 22 kgs and it would be fine, other carriers do NOT permit this and the small print tells you who they are.

However, Cabin and Hold baggage limits have been set separately for as long as I can remember and I have been paxing for 43.5 years.

Check in clerk here. It's nothing to do with a lack of common sense and everything to do with the bollocking leading to a letter on the file, leading to eventual disciplinary, etc. I hope this explains why the letter of the T&C's is applied so rigorously. I also hope that the current trading figures of most carriers explains why all extra revenue is grabbed.

I don't work for flybe.

jaycee46 said (and apologies for thread creep)

This wouldn't be the same queue that I and family (including two young children) spent 80 mins in trying to check in at Jersey last Saturday, by any chance?

Arrived 2 hours before the flight and joined an enormous queue. Two desks serving the queue, 2 more apparently serving Fast Bag Drop and Economy Plus, but helping out as they seemed to have few customers. Was forced to wait while those arriving late were pulled from the line and pushed to the front by harrassed FlyBe staff. Eventually got to the front and was rudely told I had to wait some more while yet more herds of people were fed in from the back.

Harrassed FlyBe person says it's the same story every Saturday.

OK they probably got all their pax away, but to compare the treatment of us all to a third world state would be an insult to such a state. Given they know the volumes at the start, and given that there are spare desks available surely someone in the know should have varied whatever deal FlyBe have with Servisair to accomodate this crush in a more friendly and efficient way.

FlyBe Jersey outbound customers you've now been warned!

I think the weight of the hold bag is logged somewhere for loss/insurance/loadsheet purposes, therefore it is on the system and the check-in staff may have to account for any lack of additional fees collected. Whatever, it is quite simple that 20kgs hold/10 kgs hand does not mean 22kgs hold/8kg hand. Queues of hundreds of people at the check in desk and pressure of time has largely taken that discretion on the part of check-in staff largely away. These days, isn´t it accepted: go over any limit and you will be charged for it. You may as well offer to forego your inflight meal so you can take an extra 2 1/2 kgs!

Absolutely correct. I've been paxing regularly for 52 years and, until more recent times (i.e. the loco mania) witnessed nothing but common sense applied by airline personnel regarding these rules. I recognise and sympathise with lexxity's explanation, which is the core of many of today's problems. Staff are discouraged from using discretion and common sense. Hence the reason for such poor customer service now days.

jaycee46
How about doing the decent thing and amending your caption to this thread?
Wot a shower? So wot does that make you?
You cause an enormous queue to build up when you have been told that a max of 20 kg is allowed for hold baggage. If the check in clerk had told you to go to the back of the queue and repack, that would have been fairer on everyone YOU held up. You were in the wrong, so admit it and learn to read the rules for next time. They DO apply to you, not just others. I am surprised that you bothered to announce publicly that you didn't know that 22.5 kg would result in a penalty charge.
Are you like this about getting a parking ticket? "I didn't realise I'd get a ticket after 2 hours, because I paid for an hour".

What a ridiculous analogy!

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Let's just re-cap here. Airline allowance: 20Kg hold and 10Kg cabin = 30Kg

Pax checks-in with 22.5Kg hold and (say) 7Kg cabin = 29.5Kg.

And you are all seriously ridiculing jaycee46? Get a grip people :ugh:

By the way, how many of you are able to correctly weigh your bags at home - or returning from a vacation? What is the accuracy of airline check-in scales? I know the answer to the second question: VERY POOR!

Actually it's endemic in society. Without making too much of a political point, everything in the UK is now super regulated and we live in a tick box culture where with the best of intentions, the result is that all discretion is discouraged.

This is the reason many Police go after soft targets, many schools have glowing reports and yet our exams are crap, the reason there is soooo much traffic calming ( can't be trusted with any straight roads can the British public ) and why the NHS has more money than ever, more targerts than ever and the filthiest wards in Western Europe. Everyone can see all the nice wood but there's no sign of any trees.

In the same way we now have more passengers than ever, paying less for a nightmarish and often humiliating flying experience. I might add this is the workd where the ATC Radar Controller directing 1000s of us into Heathriw cannot be trusted to take a 101ml yogurt to work.

Still honestly think you'd get away with your argument in this century jaycee46?

More legislation than any other government in history and it's still not going well. There just may be a lesson there but most of us are too stupid or obese or smacked up or indebted to care anymore. ( God I am getting more cynical )

If they had intended for you to read it that way then they would have written "30kg baggage to be split between hold and hand however you see fit". They did not write that.

I consider it from the other side. If they allowed you to just take 30kg and not care where it went, a 30kg bag could be in the overhead bin. I certainly don't want to risk someone's 30kg bag falling on my head. With your interpretation of the baggage allowance, this is a distinct possibility.

Ignorance is almost never a valid defense. Nothing prohibited you from looking at the website and confirming if what you (incorrectly) thought was indeed the case.

Well here's a different one. An airplane ticket is a contract. In this case that contract allows 20kg of hold baggage and 10kg of hand baggage.

Assume you entered into a contract to purchase green and red M&Ms (ostensibly the same product...chocolate inside, candy shell outside) and the contract allowed up to 20,000 green M&Ms and up to 10,000 red M&Ms for one price. The contract also states that if you go over the individual M&M counts, you pay extra. If you decided on the day of the handover to take 22,000 green M&Ms and only 8,000 red M&Ms, you would have to pay extra. It may not seem commonsensical but its the contract you bought into.

I had a similar situation with the same airline at Gatwick at the end of last year. Mrs reportyourlevel and I both had about 23kg hold baggage and 5kg hand baggage. No worries, left the queue, repacked, rejoined queue, checked in without a fuss.

This is copied directly from flybe's terms and conditions (http://www.flybe.com/flightInfo/1baggage.htm):

This is pretty clear - you are allowed max 10kg in the cabin and max 20kg in the hold. It does not mention combining the two separate allowances.

I often wonder when reading threads on here or watching programmes like Airline on the TV why people who behave like children expect to get treated like adults. If you're rude and insulting to the staff any tiny little bit of sympathy that the had for you (and thus any tiny little bit of discretion they were going to apply) disappears. You accepted the rules by paying for the ticket, if you don't like them then fly with someone else who has different rules.

It seems to me that people almost feel scammed and cheated when they get charged for extra baggage/meals/choice of seats etc. but what they forget is that they've actually agreed to it when booking - it's written there in black and white. The fact that you chose not to read all the terms of the agreement is your fault, not the airline's. Likewise, if you don't understand the agreement, it's you fault for not finding out what it means.

Ever heard the expression "One gets what one pays for"?

I don't 'do' LCC's, unless there is no other reasonable alternative, and I've never had a problem with being up to 5kg over my checked in baggage allowance, indeed sometimes a membership of an airline's points programme, KLM as an example, will increase the baggage allowance.

But travel by LCC, whereas they offer a lower base fare but then charge 'rip off' prices for food & drink, seat allocation, a card booking fee, being a kilo overweight on baggage etc., then one should double check their baggage weights, and do something about it, before checking in and inconveniencing other passengers who may have taken the care to check their baggage weights etc.

Well let me render the thread title appropriate.

How else would you describe an airline that charges GBP600 for a one way flight, cannot check the pax in until -30 at the gate, thus denying him the use of the exec lounge included in the ticket, then fail to give him a meal voucher, so that the crew onboard decline to proivde the snack and drinks included in the ticket, even though they say they are aware he should have it, from the ticket price?

Shower seems spot on for me.

And it seems that this airline wasn´t able to fulfil the obligations of the contract, so perhaps that is not the holy grail some here would make it.

I wouldn´t describe Flybe as ´low cost´, just cheap.

Well, the hold bags and the carryons are individually accounted for as far as weight and balance of the aircraft is concerned. Since carryons are not weighed, standard weights are used. That means that the changed weight of a carryon does not affect the aircrafts ability to carry fuel (on paper that is), while a changed weight of the hold baggage will...

You might well also challenge the accuracy of the scales used to queery the amount of fees charged for any excess weight if past reports have a foundation. Last year there were quite a few news items flying around about in-accuracy of baggage scales at check in - e.g. the Guardian article:

The scales of justice for baggage 'cheats' | Money | The Guardian


That piece actually has a comment - true or not, as it is a shock/horror news item piece of journalism - that check-in staff with Menzies had a bonus for collecting overweight bag fees.........

The Post Office is required to verify the accuracy of the scales each day - does Trading Standards apply at check in too in the same manner, especially as more pax are being charged? If true that scales are found starting at +5kg before bags are placed on them is this not a criminal offence if fees are demanded with no recourse to the pax to query this in a timely manner. Does any poster have experience of challenging the fees demanded by getting the bags re-weighed or even requesting that the accuracy of the scales be confirmed in their prescence? Boy, that would cause a queue!!

It is a bit like seeing the correct luggage tag go on the bags before they are whisked away - I'm in a bit of a habit of just watching the correct label go on, as well as trying to keep within allowances / sizes and making sure the rules for any flight have been checked. It is up to the pax to understand the terms, as others have noted, but there seems no standardisation, so it is possible to mis-interpret the requirements esp. if using a couple of different carriers (with varying rules and regs) on a single journey.

I challenged the accuracy of the scales on check in at CPT. My bag which I'd weighed at home as 21 kgs put on 7 kg on the 25 minute trip to the airport and she wanted to charge me almost a thousand Rand. When I asked the check in agent if I could weigh myself on the belt(she refused but I did it anyway!) I had similarly put on 7kg in the same time. She refused to let me go to another counter and I refused to budge until she called a supe. Supe arrived, put my case onto another belt which showed the weight as 17.5 kg, and a third which showed it as 22 kg. A little worrying to say the least.

I have concerns about this not only from a commercial point of view but also from a weight and balance perspective.

Capetonian validates my (other) point. I experienced it myself (in Madrid a few years ago when my 19Kg bag weighed in at 25Kgs) and it is most certainly not unusual.

Here's an idea for the locos. Why not provide pax waiting at the check-in or bag drop-off line with a means to weigh their bags - and thus make any necessary weight ballancing adjustments before reaching the counter?