Slashdot Mirror
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.
If too much carry on luggage is a problem, then stop charging for checking a bag. When everyone got a checked back for free, there was plenty of overhead storage space, not to mention loading and unloading passengers was a lot faster because people weren't blocking the isles dealing with their carry ons. Now everyone tries to carry on as much as they can so they don't have to pay.
Smaller carry-ons would reduce their utility for many people, resulting in more mandatory checked back and more mandatory checked bag fees. The flight attendants would like it because there would be less boarding chaos with morons who fuck up the overhead bins. And the luggage industry would have a field day.
Really, if you stop and think about this it's a miracle they're not backing it, because if they did everybody but the consumer makes money off the deal.
Centimetres, a metric measure. The entire world (not just Europe) with the exception of Liberia, Myanmar and USA use it. I'm sure you must be proud to be part of the only 1st world nation still using the deprecated imperial measurements.
Just enforce the fucking current rules.
I've yet to see anyone - except on tiny turboprops - forced to tag and check their godforsaken, obviously bigger than the fucking demonstrative cubic area display, entire motherfucking overhead compartment consuming suitcase.
Tell these fuckers, "Yeah, no." And suddenly, there won't be a problem.
Profanity because fuck you, I'm not moving my backpack under my seat and having three inches of leg room for six hours.
Zero first-world nations still use imperial measurements.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Units are complicated and many people overstate the benefits of having uniform worldwide units. If I'm choosing a unit for how I sell my goods, what's more important, that the person down the street is familiar with the unit, or somebody from Ghana will be familiar if he travels to my store.
In industry, whatever tool or system you're dealing with, you're going to either use something that is either imported or exported or has to be compatible with something that is imported or exported. Thus you are guaranteed that there will be SI units somewhere in your process and it is usually just easier to go with it for the whole process, as is done in the military, NASA, and most US engineering firms. In addition to being internationally compatible, it is also a damn lot easier to use. Sure, if you use no unit but feet, pounds and seconds in your calculation there is no unit conversion that needs to be done, but as soon as you go into the range where you might think in miles or ounces, it becomes fairly difficult to reconcile intuition with units unless you do some fiddly calculations. Whereas a native SI user knows intuitively how long a Km and mm is in the same way an American might recon a mile or an inch.
So you may say: "why don't I buy a 2 pounds of apples, then walk a mile to work where I use SI to design parts and trajectories and what not?" Problem is, if you're thinking in non SI, then non SI units tend to sneak into where they don't belong. The Mars Climate Orbiter for example fell out of the sky because Lockheed used pound-seconds instead of newton-seconds in a calculation.
Considering how much success other countries have had switching, I'm always surprised at America's feeble efforts to do so. I think it is just something to do with Americans natural paranoia about as you say a "New World Order" or whatever else that prevents it.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
You realize that your entire justification for using your existing units is because you are used to them right? Believe me when I tell you that metric units seem completely reasonable for the kinds of everyday things that people encounter when you are used to using them. We even have weather maps, beers, and shoes!
At least try to internalize the fact that you aren't being remotely objective.
There is barely anything that is a foot long
But how many centimeters long is a pornstar?
Just another day in Paradise
Why not 65, 75, 85 degrees in your example?
On the highway, if I'm driving 60 mph (~100kph), I know I'm going a mile a minute. So, see a sign for "rest stop, 40 miles", I know it'll take me about 40 minutes to get there. In metric, how long does it take you to drive 64 km at 100kph?
Examples can be pulled out of each. The metric system is not some system where all math problems are magically simplified for us.