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Flying
Air Travel: not always in the bag
From early next year passengers at UK airports are likely to be permitted to take two items of hand baggage each onto a flight, transforming the feasibility of a fortnight or three weeks’ holiday without putting luggage in the hold.
The hand luggage allowance at present varies subtly from airline to airline. For example, Virgin allows a deeper item of hand luggage than EasyJet, and British Airways does not stipulate a weight limit on hand luggage, merely that the passenger or someone travelling with them has to be able to lift it into the overhead locker without the help of the cabin staff.
In practice, the dimensions to work by are 56cm x 45cm x 25cm (22in x 18in x 10in). Although metal measuring frames positioned around the terminal at most UK airports reinforce the impression that any item of hand luggage that does not sit comfortably inside the frame may be rejected, such items are rarely if ever verified at check-in, and almost never at security. Put simply, if they look about right, they will be allowed through.
The allowance applies equally to children and adults, provided that the children have an airline seat of their own. This conjures up the alarming spectacle in future of a family consisting of two adults and four toddlers staggering through security, and then on to the plane, with 12 items of hand luggage, but if that proves to be the rule, at least it should eliminate for most families the need to put baggage in the hold.
Taking hand luggage only should allow a later check-in for most flights and of course speeds up the process of arrival at the airport in France and of leaving the UK airport upon arrival back at the UK at the end of the trip. It also eliminates the growing risk that one or more bags will fail to arrive at your destination, which can be hugely inconvenient and risk spoiling your holiday.
British Airways has led the campaign to increase the hand baggage allowance, a tacit acknowledgement perhaps that its own record on losing hold baggage is noticeably worse than any other major airline that provides statistics, although it may be significant that Virgin opted out of the reporting process altogether at a time when airports were experiencing huge delays.
The scale of mishandled baggage has been steadily growing over the past decade. Latest estimates suggest that 32 million bags were misdirected last year. Many reasons are advanced to explain this: greater airport congestion, increased transfers between airlines, overoptimistic connection times and stricter security. However air travel experts identify the main problem as personnel who, they say, are too few in number and poorly trained. A failure to load or unload baggage properly and the failure of airport baggage handling equipment accounts for most baggage misdirection. Only 3% of lost bags can be attributed to errors in ticketing or tagging. The average number of days a bag remains missing is almost 1.5, but this of course means that many bags are not recovered for several days. The risk of a serious delay to baggage is at its height during the peak holiday period of late July and August.
Although the number of misdirected items is unacceptably high, and costs the industry £1.3 billion to reunite them with their owners, it represents little more than one per cent of the staggering three billion bags processed worldwide last year. The technology is already available, for those airports prepared to invest in it, to track bags from start to finish. Special luggage labels, known as radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, allow items to be located at all times when not in flight by using wireless technology. In theory it should be impossible for bags with such tags to go missing and incidentally also makes it a great deal easier to offload the luggage checked in by a passenger who subsequently fails to show up for the flight.
The relaxation of the rules on hand baggage will not affect the items that must be carried separately during the security check in a clear plastic, resealable bag that does not exceed 20cm x 20 cm (8in x 8in) or one litre (1.75 pints) capacity. Drinks, syrups, soups, lotions, shampoos, gels, toothpaste, cosmetics and creams must all be available for inspection. After security, it is perfectly permissible to buy larger quantities of these items and take them on board your flight.
With the prospect of a substantial increase in hand baggage, boarding early becomes of much greater significance, as overhead lockers are likely to fill up completely, and the maximum permitted size of suitcase does not fit easily under the seat in front of you. Finding seats in the departure lounge near the gate and keeping a close eye on the staff so that you are prepared to move quickly may avoid a good deal of inconvenience on board later.
EasyJet offers the option of priority boarding on payment of a
supplementary fee. However its so-called Speedy Boarding, a
sound concept in theory, collapses in practice when passengers have to be taken by bus from the terminal to the aircraft steps, as is the case with many EasyJet flights. Once on the bus, all the passengers return to a level footing, and the priority advantage is lost.
From our September 2007 newsletter
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