Flight attendants’ warnings about shifting and settling carry-on luggage in overhead bins have become the least of intrepid travelers’ worries: The real concerns now are whether carry-on bags will make it on board instead of being banished below to the cargo hold, and what can be taken on board in those carry-ons.
“Right after 9/11, the screening of carry-ons was more and more tight, but it eased back up again,” said Leonard Jenkins, who splits his work week between teaching Baron Baptiste Power Yoga classes at Yoga on Sixth in Denver and serving as a flight attendant for a major airline that insists upon anonymity.
Because of the recent alleged airline-bombing plot and subsequent restrictions on items allowed in carry-on luggage, screening is as intense as ever. So passengers are rethinking what they will take on and what kind of luggage they will put it in.
In the last two weeks, major airports have reported a 30 to 50 percent increase in checked luggage, while waits to get through security hit an all-time high since 9/11, as screening sometimes included hand-checking of carry-on contents, particularly on international flights. The Transportation Security Administration is requesting that passengers pack carry-on bags lighter and with less clutter.
However, we’re reluctant to give up our carry-ons. In a Newsweek poll taken in the United States just after the thwarted terror plot was revealed, 54 percent of the respondents said they were opposed to a ban on carry-on luggage on commercial flights, although 53 percent said they would favor reducing the number and size of carry-on bags.
“I just travel with a backpack, but it’s a big backpack,” said Maria Diaz-Rodriguez, who was traveling through Luis Muñoz Marin International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico, last weekend on her way to Austin, Texas. “I have to have something to read, I have to have my iPod, I have to have my snacks. This is like a nine-hour flight with connections. I’d go crazy.”
Diaz-Rodriguez said she had put her makeup, which she normally would carry on, in her checked baggage and forgone her usual bottled water, but otherwise had not made many concessions to the restrictions.
Changing habits
Others made substantial concessions, such as the Hunt family, five of whom were also traveling from San Juan – where waits through security screening took up to three hours – on their way home to Boston. “We usually carry two bags each, one big piece of carry-on luggage and then another bag that’s like a personal thing, a purse or a backpack,” said mom Jan Hunt.
“The kids want their games and snacks, and we also try to bring as much clothing as possible for the trip onto the plane so we have stuff with us. Plus when we come back from a trip, we always have souvenirs and stuff that we don’t want to lose in case they lose our luggage. But this time we just packed it all in our checked baggage and just brought the little bags.”
Her husband, Ron, who takes his family out of the country two or three times a year when he travels for business, said that next time they will simply use different carry-ons. “I’ll look for something that’s more in-between what we’ve been using,” he said. “We’ll each bring one piece, maybe, but more of a midsize piece that’s kind of big enough to bring some clothes and the snacks and stuff, but not as much as we were bringing before.”
“Obviously, if they’re going to take longer to go through everybody’s stuff, we all have to do something to help cut down on the wait time,” Ron Hunt added. “But on long trips, you have to have something to do, and we’ve had too many missed connections and luggage problems not to have some of this stuff with us on the plane.”
Clearly, passengers still intend to get carried away with carry-ons.
Why? For starters, travelers who can get by with only carry-
on bags don’t waste time jostling for position around the baggage carousel.
For another thing, certain items – medications, eyeglasses, fine jewelry, fragile items, cash and other valuables – are best kept in your personal possession, as most bags remain unlocked because of TSA rules.
Increasingly, lengthy delays in airports, canceled flights and the general lack of predictability make traveling with a carry-
on bag as imperative as ever. Even if your flight does take off on time, most travelers want a few on-board creature comforts.
Thus, every traveler needs some kind of carry-on bag. But every carry-on bag needs to meet certain requirements. United Airlines did not respond to inquiries, but Frontier Airlines spokesman Joe Hodas said that the same carry-on rules apply to most carriers.
“In 99 percent of the cases, you’ll find that all airlines follow the same guidelines: two pieces, one carry-on and one personal item such as a purse, laptop, that fit into the overhead bin or the under the seat in front of you.”
And so far, recent events haven’t changed those rules. “I don’t know how long what we’ve got in place will last. It’s hard to say. Some policies will stick, and some won’t, but we’ve had other times when various policies have been implemented or changed, and people adapt pretty well,” Hodas said.
It’s most often the second piece that gets into a gray area, Hodas said. “Because it’s vague, some people bring one carry-on and another suitcase.”
The result: Overhead bin storage is at a premium, long-
legged fliers find themselves with their toes jammed into the under-seat luggage, and sometimes the last-to-board passengers are forced to check the baggage they intended to keep close at hand.
Squeezing it in
From a flight attendant’s point of view, carry-on bags bog down boarding.
“We’re trying for on-time performance, and half of the problem comes from fighting with carry-on bags,” Jenkins said.
And while Jenkins acknowledged that fuller flights mean paying closer attention to carry-on regulations, he said airlines also tend to see the carry-on situation as a competitive issue and strive to accommodate passengers.
A flight attendant since 1984, Jenkins recalls the days before wheeled carry-ons hit the concourse.
“Back then, some people strapped their suitcases to those portable wheelie things, and that’s what we used, but not many passengers had them,” he said.
When rolling carry-ons came along, everything changed.
Manufacturers size carry-on bags according to airline specifications, but now that’s changing, too.
Jenkins said, “Everybody pushes that size a little bit, and the overhead bins are not made for all that. An inch makes a big difference, and now we’re seeing those expandable carry-on bags with zippered pouched that make the bags 2, 3, 4 inches bigger. It’s interesting to see people trying to jam those in the overhead bins. And now the computer bags have wheels, and people are packing those, and pretty soon it’s like, ‘That’s not a personal item; that’s another piece of luggage.”‘
Lugging pieces a bit above the limit wasn’t such an issue when flights weren’t sold out.
Hodas said, “The crux of the issue is that we’re flying with more passengers. If the first 20 people get on the plane with two pieces of luggage, the last 20 people to get on the plane won’t get their bags on. We want to make sure we’re fair and equitable to all passengers, so we ask people to remember they’re flying with other people and to be considerate.”
Jenkins seconded the call for consideration: “Some people get on and seem to think, ‘That overhead bin above the seat is mine.’ It’s actually for five or six people. If you do have two bags, put one under the seat for takeoff and landing. Once you’re up in the air, you can put it behind your legs so you can stretch out and put your feet under the seat ahead of you.”
ize matters
The variety of carry-on bags is enough to send a consumer into a tailspin. When purchasing a carry-on bag, a major consideration, obviously, is its ability to fit in the official bag sizers at the airport. Weight is another consideration. American Airlines has a 40-pound limit for carry-on bags, but even on carriers with no official rule, you still need to be able to heft your bag up into the overhead bin.
And don’t count on the flight attendant to handle your bag for you. Jenkins noted that as carry-on bags got heavier, more flight attendants complained of thrown-out backs from throwing unwieldy bags up in the bins. To avoid workers-compensation situations, his employer instituted a policy against lifting passengers’ bags. Flight attendants also received training on the proper lifting of bags.
As airline employees, Jenkins and Hodas also enjoy the perks of flying what’s known in the business as non-rev – short for non-revenue. In other words, free. But they do fly standby, which means they may or may not get on the plane.
Which for Hodas means carry-on bags.
“Very infrequently do I check bags unless I’m traveling with the whole family,” Hodas said. “I pack light and take a carry-on and my computer bag.”
His bags? A roller bag from Costco and a standard-issue computer bag that came with his laptop.
“You’d be surprised how much I can stuff in that thing: my MP3 player, my book, my work, which I occasionally do on the plane,” he said. “I don’t see a real need to buy super-expensive luggage.”
As for Jenkins, perhaps his yogic sensibilities have led him to embrace simplicity and an abiding trust: This flight attendant is not a fan of carry-on, not even for himself. When traveling for pleasure, Jenkins prefers to forgo carry-on luggage altogether and fly unencumbered.
“If coming home, especially, I’m big on checking everything. Then you can move through the airport without anything weighing on you. People are tied to that bag and afraid to let it go. I don’t have that attachment to anything, but I know a lot of people worry about losing their bags.”
In fact, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (available at www.bts.gov), the number of mishandled bags in 2005 went up to 6.04 per 1,000 passengers from 4.91 in 2004. Last year, fliers filed 10,000 mishandled-luggage complaints per day against the major airlines, the most since 1990, according to industry sources.
But according to Hodas, the fear of never seeing your bags again is ungrounded. He said that on average only 0.05 percent of all bags are not returned.
Denver Post Travel editor Kyle Wagner contributed to this story.
