Ridiculous amounts of hand luggage on short haul flight

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A feeling of deja vu and beyond on our flight back from Florence to London City Airport earlier this week. Im back on the topic of hand luggage.

A BA flight on BBC a small plane where everyone has got a decent baggage allowance.

The flight was not full but the overhead lockers were and about 15 suitcases had to be taken off the aircraft and go in the hold before we could take off. One person had somehow got as far as boarding the plane with something that didn't even fit properly in the overheads.

Has budget airline travel conditioned us to be unreasonable about luggage?

I'm all for banning overheads. If it don't fit under your seat, you pay for hold

This!

Fine if you only fly a few times a year.

No the issue is the aircraft wasn't designed for nearly every person flying to have a wheelie case. The larger overheads fit 4 max, sometimes only 3. Ironically, some hardcase suitcases don't fit a lot of stuff but are ridged and bulky with their wheels.

It's gotten out of hand.

Why?

The DH is a frequent flyer for work. He factors in the necessary time. He checks in his 55cm suitcase

Another “very much agree”.

I'm one of those who finds air travel (in economy/budget) to be a challenge and quite stressful now. I used to do the overhead + underseat but I can no longer be bothered with all that. Sorry.....

I no longer care about saving a few minutes at the carousel, because realistically that's all you save in time. I'm prepared to pay for hold baggage now and it's so worth it. So I just use the underseat backpack and a full size case and check that in. I haven't had a case go missing yet, and I carry a small change of essentials in the backpack just in case.

I have found that by the time you get off the plane, through the airbridge, down millions of steps, off on a long walk, queue for immigration (can be long and applies whether you check in a bag or not!), the case is on the belt once the passport control check is done.

I know I have to pay for checked luggage, but it is worth it for me.

Do remember not all rucksacks that are hand luggage are the right size to fit under seat. Blanket stating that they must do so is unfair if they comply with hand luggage sizes. They certainly take up less space than a wheelie suitcase does in many cases

I completely agree with you

I did not say they were - I said the opposite

She had to put it in the hold. I don't know what was in it, but she was struggling getting it off the carosel

What are you talking about? I don’t need to take extra time if I use hand luggage, which is why I take hand luggage. I

Oh dear, well you might because if you are last boarding and all the overheads are full the bags will have to go in the hold. It happened this week short haul and last month long haul with several empty seats the stewards had to fill every 'crew only' overhead and crevice with passengers bags

No need, I pay for my bag to be on board.
You seem weirdly angry about other people’s choices.

I have to say you are totally wrong here. I used to fly shorthaul at least twice a week and did so for 3 years.

There is not enough room in the overhead lockers for everyone to have a case in there. If everyone brings a wheely case they will not all fit on the plane. Not every overhead locker is available as equippment is stored in some. Emergency exit rows passengers need to put everything up, even handbags, so this takes extra room.

They do not do the logistics at the gate every time. If the flight is full they often start asking for bags to be surrendered before boarding but I have often seen bags being taken off flights and put in the hold. This does sometimes delay the flight as it misses its slot to take off.

You don't start boarding 45 minutes before scheduled take off time on shorthaul flights. Its usually 10-20 minutes before, sometimes even less. The turnaround time is often less than 45 minutes from opening the doors to let people off to closing them with new passengers.

You are unlikely to turn round a fully laden aircraft in 45 minutes including refuelling if there is significant hold luggage. This is why they don’t want you to take it!

I'm pretty sure it was a 787 - the iteration where seat 21 is the front of economy not the back of premium economy. All the crew only overheads were full and there were numerous empty seats. The stewards were very close to offloading some baggage but managed to stuff every crevice. They were apologetic to those of us in front row of economy because the spaces we needed to put our things for take off and landing were not there. They kindly looked after our bags during take off

I always thought that "Priority Boarding", i.e. those seats purchased with a 10kg bag, were restricted so that only so many were allowed in line with the amount of overhead space available. Therefore once the priority seats are all sold, all other baggage goes in the hold.

Am I wrong? If I am, that cements my decision to always pay for hold baggage since the overhead situation is a free for all, and has gotten completely out of hand. I feel for the cabin crew in these situations as the sense of entitlement of some people can be absolutely off the flipping scale.

How does one person carry two wheelies? Are you sure it wasn’t two people together? I can’t see how they would have dragged two wheelies and carry a handbag.

a big problem is that duty free doesn’t count. So everyone can have one wheelie or cabin bag and one massive duty free bag. Then they put their personal item like handbag or briefcase up there too. Obviously this takes up more space than is available overhead.

You don't think you are then? Hopefully you aren't impatient old guy who had to put his wheelie suitcases in overheads not near his seat and then had to get them out buy barging people in the aisle out of the way because he hadn't the manners to wait in his seat as appr to his stowage decisions.

Good plan

On another note, would anyone know if the dimensions allowed for overhead baggage bins means they could be stowed side on rather than flat? I think that would mean that more overhead cases could fit in each bin, and I've often wondered why this is not the norm!

Order it to be delivered the day or so before your flight, in case there’s any delivery issues. They hold it for (I think) 7 days. So you’re also covered if your flight changes date too 😬

To be honest I don't think it was ever that bad in the past when airlines were more generous with hold luggage allowance. Now most carriers charge you over the odds for the hold, I'm not surprised people are trying to get away with travelling light and squeezing it in the cabin. And this is not a new issue - I remember on a number of short haul flights way before the pandemic we'd have a passive aggressive speech from the crew about how we'd missed our slot due to an excess in hand luggage.