Are we being had?
 

I recently was flying with KLM from Liverpool via AMS onto Cape Town. I was a little worried that my bag might be just a little to heavy. It was about 3:30am and I spied myself a row of empty check-in-desks with all their scales switched on. I had an idea, I could weigh the bag myself and then return the least needed item in it back to my car before I actually checked-in. What a plan! and they said Grammar Schools were a waste of time...........
Now I'm not inferring anything and am just passing on my experience.

It just happens that these check-in desk were lets say for a budget airline that charges for every conceivable extra that we take for granted with the major airlines and the colour ORANGE was prominent. So I man-handles my bag onto the nearest scales and it shows at 23kg - bang on the limit! MMM best try another ORANGE one next door....22.9kg. Fair enough me thinks, I'll take a flyer. So off I toddles to the KLM check in desk and guess what? 20.6kg.

Form your own conclusions.........:eek:

Lets be generous and say that the KL scales were under reading. That would worry me a bit more as if it was a full flight and 250 bags were under weighed by 2 kilos thats half a tonne of baggage not on the load sheet.

Otherwise I would think calibration on a regular certifiable basis is needed.

Quite agree Rhayader, but KLM only use a F70 on their Cityhopper from LPL-AMS and only a few passengers have check-in baggage, so on a full flight were talking 140kgs max not a tonne.
My thougth was more from a passenger point of view (not that an overweight aircraft isn't a concern to passengers) who are paying for excess baggage when they fly with orange........are they being ripped off?

email trading standards
 

personally I would email Trading Standards for their area, I'm sure they would love to pop along with some calibrated weights and do this, nice easy job, bit of publicity if they nail the orange people, flight safety.. etc

G

trading standards
 

I was under the impression they had to be calibrated
on a regular basis anyway? With the records kept.

Or maybe not...

Airlines investigated over baggage check-in failures -Times Online

As an aside, I did the same thing in Cancun a few weeks
ago, there the weight could vary by a few kilos dependant
on how central to the scales the bag was, however, the
system there uses one set of scales for two desks so
the surface area is much larger.

Regards

DaveA

Same experience with Delta Air Lines
 

Interestingly enough when my son recently checked in at TPA for a Delta flight his bag was 2kg overweight. Delta wanted to charge him $150 excess weight charge. He took more than 2kgs out of his case (for me to carry later on a seperate itinerary in C class) and he re-weighed his case, but on a seperate scale. Oddly it showed that he was still over. We then tried three different scales and discovered that all showed different readings with a discrepancy range of 3Kgs! I immediately called for a Supervisor and politely stated that if they wished to be pedantic about 2kg I challenge the accuracy of their scales and showed him why. The bag was accepted without further comment.

To be honest I would expect a pedantic attitude from LCCs but not from a major airline such as DELTA AIR LINES. They should at least calibrate all their scales to read accurately.

Recently travelled with a LCC from Europe to UK and then checked in with a legacy carrier, exactly same bag, no changes, with the legacy carrier was about 2kg lighter than the LCC. Luckily i was not subject to any excess baggage with the LCC or i would have taken it further, its an area i think needs investigation.

If scales are being used to charge by weight then they must be certified legal for trade and strictly controlled. Any doubts report to trading standards.

People should remember that the vast majority of weigh scales in UK airports (certainly all used by LCCs) are not owned or maintained by the carrier using them at check-in. The airport companies are the owners and, as such, responsible for ensuring their accuracy. From past detailed knowledge, maintenance is woeful and calibration rarely completed on a regular basis.

Myself and my wife flew from EDI to LHR with BA, then on separate tickets from LHR to LAX using the most American of the US flag carriers, and our bag showed up as 3 kG heavier at LHR compared to the reading on the scales at EDI. We hadn't even opened the bag to add anything, so it is not just the low-cost carriers.

(also, on a different occasion, the check in person at LHR could not comprehend how it was possible to be in possession of both a valid ESTA, dating from March 2010, and a US visa, valid from about six months later :ugh:)

On a point of order, Groundhand, I think you'll find that the airline, directly or via a handling agent, is responsible for making sure that scales are correctly calibrated. The passenger's contract is with the carrier, not the airport nor indeed the handing agent, and the weighing and charging are carried out under that contract.

The airline must take the necessary steps to ensure accuracy, including checking the scales and calling the airport to fix them if wrong if the airport has leased them. And the airline must ensure that its appointed agent does exactly the same.

There is nowhere for the airline to hide on this issue, which is a serious one of fraud, and is very common, deliberately and otherwise.

All the airline/agent needs is a handy object known to be precisely 20Kg with which staff can check the scales each time they take them over. It takes 10 seconds and there is no excuse for not doing it.

Trading Standards must be called whenever there is a reasonable suspicion that scales are faulty. Do not warn the airline, agent or airport, for obvious reasons. If you are right, TS will tell you and you can recover overpayments.

If we all do this without hesitation, this scourge of the industry can be eliminated. Over-reading scales are the norm in many airports, and the airlines that use them are well aware of it.


As light relief; I happened to glance just now at the T&Cs that Easyjet push out. Quote "the aircraft is boarded in priority order, so the earlier you check in, the more choice you will have!" The exclamation mark is Easyjet's, not mine, but I'm surprised, too. I wonder if the writer has ever been on an Easyjet flight?

To continue the light relief: I wonder if the writer has ever been on an Easyjet flight? When departing from an Italian airport? :mad:

I am hardly ever overweight on luggage. However, on the only recent occasion that I was (only v slightly over, less than 1kg) I politely queried when the scales had last been calibrated.

I was immediately let off from paying for the extra (this was a LCC). Now that could have been because it was so marginal; it could have been just a kind member of staff; or it could have been that the staff member was herself doubtful about the accuracy of the scales. Who knows? But I'll be trying the same thing again in future.

Definitely Trading Standards (or here in Ireland the NSAI) would be very interested...

Once funny incident I personally had was where my suitcase was 2kg over and I was asked (ordered!) to lighten it - which I did by transferring some items to my carry on.
The desk agent was happy now that his baggage was within weight, but I was amused to explain to the wife that because I was still carrying on the excess nothing had actually changed.
A case of "my bit is OK" (and a thank you to Mr.Boeing's 757's nicely over-power engines!!)

Darragh

ImplaneCrazy: Thanks. Didn't know you couldn't be charged under 1kg. That may well explain my experience.

Depends on who you are flying with - I've had a quick look at some LCC T&Cs and some (eg Virgin blue) are worded . .. per KG or part thereof above the included allowance so you may get hit for th 900g over the limit.

I remember not so long ago at Ema...there was hell on as apparently most of the scales were not calibrated properly.

Not so. It is the airline who are charging you for the baggage, and receiving your money. If their handling agents have inaccurate scales, overcharge you, or whatever it is still the one who you have your contract with (the airline) who have the responsibility. It is up to them to ensure that everyone involved, whether employee, subcontracted agent, manufacturer of the kit, or whoever, is doing the job correctly.

I've occasionally been marginally overweight, and the Agent has turned a Blind Eye, but recently checked in using an electronic ticket at an automatic check in facility, my slightly - less than 1 k - excess weight rang the bell, and all the automatic extra over charging systems came into play.

I played dumb and cancelled everything and asked for assistance, the standby agent, actually working harder at trying to sort out everyones' problems with the D.i.Y machines than if she had just been efficiently processing everybody, regretted that she could do nothing to override the slight overweight. The Computer Has Spoken, so I put some of the stuff from my hold baggage into my cabin bag, and The Computer was happy.

Now, the aeroplane took off with a false loadsheet - OK, not important in this instance, but you get the point ?

Life was easier before computers - as someone else has remarked, I Blame Bill Gates.