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

Stop charging for checked bag

[NoKaOi]

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.

Re:Stop charging for checked bag

[gweilo8888]

And the answer, like it or not, is regulation. Hidden fees are out of control in the airline industry, and it's high time that they were banned. The solution is simple: The advertised ticket price is the *only* thing the airline should be allowed to charge you for your seat, baggage (checked or carry-on up to a regulated size and weight), and any additional services offered to you during booking, in the airport or on the plane.

It's also high time that overbooking or fuel surcharges were banned, as well. It's not like the airline refunds you a portion of your ticket prices when gas costs less than expected, or refunds you if you decide not to travel on a ticket you paid for, so what possible reason is there for them to be allowed to raise the contractually-agreed price after you've already paid it or to sell your seat to somebody else as well and hope one of you doesn't show up?

Sadly, there's zero chance any of this will ever happen because our government operates solely in the interests of big business, not what's best for the general public. But I can dream, can't I?

Re:Stop charging for checked bag

[viperidaenz]

Can they also regulated the size and weight of the passenger for that price?
The cost of flying a plane increases with weight.

Re:Stop charging for checked bag

[gweilo8888]

I couldn't disagree more. There has been a standard carry-on size for as long as I can remember, but it's only since airlines started nickel-and-diming their customers with hidden fees that most people started taking advantage of it.

And frankly, if you want efficient stowage, having a standard size is a GOOD thing. There's a reason container ships use standard container sizes, and that air freight uses standard unit load devices: It's the most efficient way possible to fit in the maximum quantity of cargo. The same is true of baggage -- if there's a standard carry-on size, overhead compartments get made (on all but the smallest aircraft) to fit that size as efficiently as possible.

And that's why the whole IATA proposal is bunkum -- if they decrease size just fractionally, all that will do on most aircraft is leave small spaces in each overhead compartment that aren't sufficient to fit another bag. You're not going to get any more people jamming bags in the overheads without a very significant change in bag size, or a redesign of the overheads to match the new, smaller bag sizes optimally.

Re:Stop charging for checked bag

[lgw]

Oh, it would totally be worth it. Especially with a large board displaying the weight, and comical cartoon animal animations accompanying the values. But sadly, we no longer have "shame" in America.

Re:Stop charging for checked bag

[Cimexus]

Yep. I moved from Australia to the US a couple of years ago. I am a very frequent flier (140+ segments per year).

In Australia it was never a problem getting overhead space because:

(a) The carry on bag size limits were enforced

(b) Most airlines (including the major two - Qantas and Virgin) allow one checked bag as part of the ticket price (I won't say 'free', but it's not charged as an extra fee)

(c) Less of those godforsaken small regional jets (EMB 120s, 175s and CRJ 200s and 700s in particular) that have tiny overhead bins. The proportion of flights in the US (and Canada) that these aircraft amazes me. You get them even between major (4M+ population) cities. You'd never get anything smaller than a 737 or A320 in Australia between major city pairs.

Having said that, addressing (a) and/or (b) alone would probably be enough to solve the issue in North America.

Re:Stop charging for checked bag

[Martin Blank]

Even with the standard sizes defined in most airports, I routinely see people bringing aboard bags that if they were forced to check against the model next to most gates, they would not remotely pass. (These people usually have significant elite status, and that may be why they're not questioned. Those same people should be able to check the bag for free, or afford the $25 for the extra bag if they're already checking their limit. I say this as someone who travels 10-15 times a year and checks his bag when at all possible.)

Airliner manufacturers have seen the situation and expanded the size of carry-on bins. This is in part due to the increased volume of carry-on bags, but they're also increasing the height and depth. The 787 and the 737NG both have or will have these larger bins, and I believe the A380 has and the A350 will have larger bins. Concepts trotted out by Boeing and Airbus sometimes show even larger overhead bins. That they're responding to indirect market pressures--passengers go for airlines with more overhead space, so airlines go for aircraft with more overhead space--is a strong indicator of just how fully a standard can be completely ignored when it's inconvenient to a significant fraction of the end-users affected by the standard.

Re:Stop charging for checked bag

[AmiMoJo]

Those are the rules in the EU. They are one of the reasons why the EU is so great for consumers. The price they advertise is the price you pay, baggage included. But the rules go much further than that.

If your flight is delayed by more than four hours you get serious compensation. The only exception is if the delay is due to extraordinary and unforeseeable circumstances. Bird strikes are pretty common, so you get compensation if that happens. Problems fuelling, mechanical issues etc. all yield hundreds of Euros for you.

These rules don't make tickets particularly expensive either. They are expensive, but that's because of the huge amount of tax we have to pay on the environmental damage caused. Last time I flew long distance about 65% of the cost was tax. I'm in two minds about it, because on the one hand the environmental damage is quite significant, but on the other hand I'm not sure that its the best way to deal with the problem.

Re:Stop charging for checked bag

[cardpuncher]

Actually, the IATA proposal was a recommended MINIMUM size for cabin baggage (actually, two sizes, there's a smaller capacity defined for very small aircraft) so that passengers could acquire one bag that they could take everywhere. There may be a common size in North America, but in the rest of the world there isn't and oversize baggage charges are a source of some considerable revenue to budget airlines and annoyance to passengers, particularly when their journey involves more than one budget carrier. There was certainly never any intent to prevent airlines carrying larger bags in the cabin if they wanted to. Indeed aircraft manufacturers are going to be fitting larger overhead bins to planes to deal with the increase in carry-on luggage. However, this has been spun essentially as a "Mars bars are getting smaller" story, so the proposal has, now, AFAIK, been withdrawn in face of intense public opposition to something that was never proposed in the first place...

Re:Stop charging for checked bag

[jabuzz]

There is an upper limit on the bag mass for handling reasons. So one bag at 35kg and one bag at 5kg is not the same as two bags at 20kg even though the combined mass is the same.

Re:Stop charging for checked bag

[Nidi62]

I would never ever check in my camera gear. That is simply to much risk and the insurance doesn't cover it - you would need to buy a special insurance for that and that would probably be very expensive since bags are frequently lost or even stolen.

I worked on the ramp for several years in one of the busiest airports in the US, and if you pack a camera in a good-sized pelican case you won't have any issues. For one thing I have never seen one break or get damaged. But the main reason is this: honestly, pelican cases never get thrown because the person stacking the bin (or the one passing the bags to him if it's a long bin and they have enough gate crew members) usually sits on one. If you want to go cheap and don't really have anything too fragile, one of the guys I worked with said he always used a large rolling cooler for his luggage (strong, watertight, plus then you have a cooler when you get to your destination). When you have to stack 100-150 bags in a 757 in the middle of summer, there's nothing like the simple joy of getting a good pelican case to sit on and a working bin carpet.

Re:Stop charging for checked bag

[supercrisp]

My wife, a former stewardess for a European carrier, just suggested that this might, in part, be about safety. She thinks that decreasing the thickness of the luggage, but not the other dimensions to any significant degree, suggests that the European carriers may have been pushing toward underseat stowage of the carryons, which is much safer than the overhead bin. Basically the overhead bins are too flimsy to keep luggage from flying around. She also believes that this is a follow-on effect of charging for checked luggage. Anyway, not arguing against anyone's position, but her theory made sense so I was looking for a good place to share it.

Re:Stop charging for checked bag

[lgw]

Plus larger people wouldn't travel, and then the cost of tickets would increase.

Wait, what? Lower demand to you means higher prices? Maybe a bit less 420, dave.

I would have expected US carriers to back this

[swb]

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.

Re:I would have expected US carriers to back this

[afidel]

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.

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.

Re:What are...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Why bother with new rules?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Why bother with new rules?

[Anonymous Coward]

^ Found the guy delaying boarding by virtue of his roller bag that can't even fit down the center aisle.

Re:What are...

[viperidaenz]

Is that metric or imperial zero?

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

[mikael_j]

Seeing as how a Boeing 787 is an American aircraft made by an American company (Boeing) that's unlikely to happen anytime soon.

There's this other company you may have heard of though, they're called Airbus...

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

[Whiteox]

Airbus A380

Zero first-world nations still use imperial ...

[rssrss]

Including the US.

Much of commerce and daily life in the US uses a customary system of measurements that traces its origins to England, before the revolution.

In 1859 the UK adopted a reformed and rationalized system of weights and measures that was binding on itself and its Imperial possessions, including about a quarter of the Earth's surface at that time.

The US did not adopt that system. Although in 1959, the US and the Imperial system countries adopted a common definition of the yard in SI units.

There are extensive differences between the US customary and Imperial systems, especially in units of volume and in larger units of weight.

All of this is explained by the National Institute of Standards and Technology [NIST, a division of the US Department of Commerce [nist.gov]] in Appendix B "Units and Systems of Measurement Their Origin, Development, and Present Status" to their publication Handbook 44 "Specifications, Tolerances, and Other Technical Requirements for Weighing and Measuring Devices" [PDF].

While we are correcting misconceptions, the SI system (often called metric) is lawful in the US, and has been so since 1866, and dominates several important activities, such as health care, and the military. What the US has not done, and probably will never do, is outlaw, the customary system.

Re:What are...

[donscarletti]

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.

Even Better system

[freeze128]

A better solution would be to stop building planes that have a CYLINDRICAL fuselage when all our baggage is RECTANGULAR!

Re:What are...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:What are...

[Sique]

Thing is, while I do agree that a standard unit that allows for easy conversion has its advantages, the Metric System's units do not correlate well to real-world situations. 0 degrees Fahrenheit through 100 degrees Fahrenheit correspond well with the temperature range at which a human can work outdoors without resorting to special equipment. A foot, as it is similar to the anatomical part of the same name, is sized conveniently to work with in the physical world with things that the average person will interact with in arms-reach. A gallon of water is about at the limit of what most people can pour and handle in drinkable liquid.

As someone who grew up within the Metric system, I have the same issues with the imperial units. I find them completely unintuitive and out of my normal experience. What good is a foot as a unit? There is barely anything that is a foot long, except a foot. But the working space on my desk is 1 meter wide. The distance from my desk to the wall behind me has to be at least 1 meter to allow me to sit behind my desk. The length of my legs from the hips down is about 1 meter. What good is Fahrenheit either? When my thermometer shows 0 Celsius, I know I have to drive carefully, as the roads might be frozen. Much easier to remember than 32 F. 20 Celsius is a nice spring day, 25 Celsius means I don't need a jacket, and 30 Celsius means it's getting hot outside. Nice, round numbers. But 68 F, 77 F and 86 F? Horrible! 1 Liter of any drinkable liquid weighs 1 kilogram. That's easy. How much pounds is that? And why the difference between liquid ounces and weigh ounces? Catastrophic! 1 km is the distance I walk within 10 minutes. Easy. A mile? Something about 16 minutes. 100 km is the distance I drive within one hour on the Autobahn, even including heavy traffic. Easy. 100 miles? Yeah, one and a half hour, maybe a little more. How inconvient!

Metric works well with my experience. Metric works for me. Imperial units do not.

See how it boils down to whatever you grew up with? Imperial units are in no way more or less intuitive than metric ones. You just remember the real world examples that fit within the imperial units. I remember the real world examples that work well with metric units. None of them is more natural than the other one.

Re:What are...

[Yomers]

Quotes from "London is better for tech" enterprises:

According to a story and trivia questions in Germany, Fahrenheit actually chose the lowest air temperature measured in his hometown Danzig in winter 1708/09 as 0 F, and only later had the need to be able to make this value reproducible using brine.

The third point, 96 degrees, was approximately the human body temperature, then called "blood-heat".

So Fahrenheit vs Celsius 0-100: coldest temp at Danzig, winter 1708/09 and a "blood-heat" vs freezing water and boiling water temperatures. Are you sure the first is more intuitive?

Re:What are...

[azcoyote]

It's good to hear your perspective and see that our perceptions about the intuitiveness of our measurement systems is relative. I've always thought that the larger scale of Fahrenheit was convenient because units of 10 distinguished temperatures well (70's are distinct from 80's), but it's clear that you use units of 5 in Celsius for the same purpose.

Of course I admit that my reluctance to change to metric has more to do with American nationalism than with any sure superiority of our units (although I despise using centimeters for small around-the-house measurements when inches and 1/4, 1/8, and 1/16 inches feel better to me). But at the same time, I think that it is as necessary to have multiple measurement systems as it is to have multiple languages. In the 20th c. especially many people believed that the era of different tongues was coming to an end, but I think that despite the prevalence of English and Chinese around the world, there will always be multiple languages because culture can never be simplified into a single thing. Even in the USA it's possible to go to another region where they use some different words, different phrasings, different ways of thinking, and this is simply a natural occurrence akin to genetic diversity. The more distinct a culture, the more distinct its use of a language, so native English speakers in India do not speak exactly the same English as in the USA or UK. An absolute universal language can never be anything but an artificial construct disconnected from real culture, hence the problem with Esperanto. (And I do recognize that there are some native Esperanto speakers, but that does not remove its failure as a universal, a-cultural language.)

In the end, the U.S. uses the metric system when it's helpful (e.g. in science), and there is no pressing need to switch to it completely. Just because we use the US system doesn't mean that we don't understand the metric system and aren't taught it in schools.

Re:What are...

[rastos1]

your entire justification for using your existing units is because you are used to them right?

Could you, please, clarify how does following fit into imperial system?

One Joule is equal to the energy transferred (or work done) when applying a force of one newton through a distance of one meter.

One Volt is a potential difference between two parallel, infinite planes spaced 1 meter apart that create an electric field of 1 Newton per Coulomb.

One Ampere is constant current which, if maintained in two straight parallel conductors of infinite length, of negligible circular cross-section, and placed 1 metre apart in vacuum, would produce between these conductors a force equal to 2*10^-7 newton per metre of length.

One Tesla is equal to one Weber per square meter.

How does all that translate to imperial?

Re:What are...

[danbert8]

Yes, 0 is cold, 100 is hot as perceived by humans... Water might care about when it freezes and boils, but outside of a laboratory, most people don't. They just want to know if they need to put on a coat or wear shorts.

Re:What are...

[dcw3]

There is barely anything that is a foot long

But how many centimeters long is a pornstar?

Re:What are...

[Noah Haders]

An imperial gallon is simply 4 Liters, a metric measurement.

nopee. an imperial gallon is a little more than 4.5 liters.

you're thinking of the little-used unit "quadliter", which falls between a US gallon and an imperial gallon.

Re:What are...

[torkus]

And a pint is a pound ... it's not that complicated and how often do you really care how much a liquid weighs in your personal life? If you do this professionally/scientifically then it's just working knowledge to know this stuff.

Don't get me wrong, the metric system definitely easier to use in a lot of cases...but not so much easier that it really matters for daily life.

Re:What are...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.