US Airlines Say Smaller Carry-Ons Are Not In the Cards

New submitter callgen writes: Airlines for America, a trade group for U.S. carriers, has rejected proposed international standards for carry-on bags. Last week, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced an initiative to "optimize" airlines' accommodation of carry-on bags by suggesting a new standard luggage size. It suggested a standard of 55cm x 35cm x 19cm, 58% of the size that Southwest allows. Most standard carry-ons are larger than IATA's recommendations, meaning travelers would have to purchase new luggage if the smaller size was adopted.

Comments

Re:Call me about their use of metric...

[Whiteox]

Airbus A380

Re:I would have expected US carriers to back this

[Nidi62]

Smart carriers don't want you to check bags, the hold is much more valuable carrying freight and freight doesn't require the army of workers that checked bags do.

As someone who has worked for an airline in both a ramp and air cargo capacity yes, they do. A checked bag might pass through the hands of 7 people, from acceptance to loading to unloading to delivery to baggage claim. Cargo goes through an acceptance agent, then another person takes it to a staging area, where at least 1 person then builds it into a container or cart. Then another person drives the container to another staging area, where another person takes from the cargo facility staging area to the gate for the flight. Then the gate crew takes it, moves it alongside the plane, then someone else puts it on the belt and the person in the bin stacks it. When the plane arrives at it's destination is it loaded into another cart/container, taken to the local freight facility, where it it is broken down, staged for pick-up, then finally delivered to the driver picking it up. That is at least 13 people handling 1 piece of frieght. And that assumes it is a small piece of freight going on a narrow body. Frieght going on a wide-body aircraft take even more people: we would routinely have 3-4+ people breaking down a single PMC. It is not unreasonable to have 20 people in some way handling 1 piece of freight. And that does not include the truck drivers or originating/destination shipper/freight forwarder facilities, or if it has to be inspected by customs for international shipments.

But yes, by wieght cargo is more profitable because airlines can charge a premium for it, especially with things that have to be sent by air cargo such as perishable products (foodstuff, medicine, flowers-you have no idea how many hundreds of boxed of hydrangreas are shipped are freight to Dubai every week), time sensitive items, live animals, human remains, and valuable items such as gold or other precious metals or exotic/expensive cars.