How to make enemies...! [by weighing carry-on]

[Ewok]

Safety? Please! Their own LCC allow 10kg if you pay extra...

 

[Melburnian1]

It would be interesting to know the actual weight. 3 kgs per passenger adds up to 1,500 kgs. That translates to about 800 kgs of extra fuel burn on an LAX-Melbourne sector.

I agree with your annoyance about 'wheelies' - surely some of these must weight more than 10kg - but at the fares QF typically charges (top of the market), it can well afford an extra 800kgs of fuel burn if it delivers passengers greater convenience.

The median increase in passengers' weight in the last 30 years has been more than 3kg per person, as a comparison, given that the percentage of Caucasians (and probably some others) who are overweight or obese has risen. There's also genetic factors that mean the 'average' male and female is taller than say those born 60 years ago.

 

[Melburnian1]

I’m sure we’ve discussed it at some point, but it would be interesting to see just what the real load is. Weigh the passengers, all luggage. Everything. It is very rare to make fuel on a long trip....but not at all uncommon to go down. Sometimes you can readily see why, be it weather, or altitude blockage. Sometimes not...

It was discussed many months ago, if not longer, on AFF.

At the time you provided us with the 'average' weight airlines use per passenger that from memory was around the 70kg mark.

Unfortunately blogs like these are very hard to search to find the original discussion as I can't recall what the subject heading was, or the exact words contributors like you used. But it was informative and interesting (thanks).

 

[jb747]

I agree with your annoyance about 'wheelies' - surely some of these must weight more than 10kg - but at the fares QF typically charges (top of the market), it can well afford an extra 800kgs of fuel burn if it delivers passengers greater convenience.

I don't give a proverbial about whether it costs an extra 800 kgs of burn...unless it happens to be 800 kgs that I do not have, which on long haul flights is the norm. It's not that I don't want to put it on....but if I'm out of weight, then I can't.

 

[Melburnian1]

Sydney to Perth, 26/8/2018, QF581.

QF was 1 hour late boarding. QF decided to weight all hand luggage. No exception over 7 KG - Fair enough....

If this was instituted system wide by any mainline airline, and it began to delay flights, there would be a huge cost to the carrier.

Would we then see a requirement that passengers be at the gate even earlier than at present, or some other sort of 'time penalty' that would be a huge annoyance to business travellers?

If so, it would strengthen the case for high speed rail linking the more populous cities on the east coast.

 

[Duffa]

I don't know which magical airport this is, but some of my recent data points:
AMS: ~40 minutes
MAN: ~30 minutes
SYD: ~30 minutes
CDG: ~40 minutes
ARN: ~35 minutes
LGA: ~10 minutes

If I had to wait 5 minutes for my bags I would never go through the pain of travelling HLA most of the time...but this is not the reality I experience when I travel with a checked bag. Also if priority baggage was something that worked, maybe that would also help.

Hear what others saying. Though I have been to carousel and found my bags already spinning round, last week in Dublin.This was despite an unusually short walk from the gate and J disembarkation. In other words, priority worked for me.... As always YMMV

 

[fairbasa]

I don't know which magical airport this is, but some of my recent data points:
AMS: ~40 minutes
MAN: ~30 minutes
SYD: ~30 minutes
CDG: ~40 minutes
ARN: ~35 minutes
LGA: ~10 minutes

If I had to wait 5 minutes for my bags I would never go through the pain of travelling HLA most of the time...but this is not the reality I experience when I travel with a checked bag. Also if priority baggage was something that worked, maybe that would also help.

I was talking domestically, particularly narrow bodies.

It's not uncommon for my bag to already be on the conveyor at MEL by the time I've walked from one of the far gates to the carousel.

 

[featheast]

Sometimes I need to travel with 2 laptops - a 15inch macbook pro and a 13inch macbook pro.
The 2 laptops plus a backpack won't leave much room for more carry-ons.
Does Qantas consider the weight of laptops included as the 7kg limit or not?

 

[jb747]

If this was instituted system wide by any mainline airline, and it began to delay flights, there would be a huge cost to the carrier.

There would be so much commercial backlash that it would never happen anyway. You'd need CASA to mandate it for all before anything like that would happen as a matter of course.

 

[Melburnian1]

To be fair, if you really don't like a service it's pretty rational behaviour to stop using it. What's less rational is to whinge a lot and expect that your whinging will change anything.

Well if we took that attitude, nothing would ever change.

Companies (and governments) may regard individuals, customers or passengers as 'annoyances' (only wanting our money, or our vote) but if sufficient numbers object to a regulation or policy, it's difficult for them to ignore what may be constructive feedback.

 

[Duffa]

Oh cough.
I didn't realise when I typed my reply to the third post, that things had got a little heated. My bad

 

[Melburnian1]

If it is unenforceable, or as an aviator suggested there'd be a 'commercial backlash' if a mainline airline tried (in Oz) to institute it network-wide on B738/A320 and up size aircraft, what was the point of doing it as a one off?

It's not as if Mrs Bloggs who travels from Sydney to Brisbane next week will know that on QF581 on 26 August, hand luggage was weighed.

Would airline staff need the OK from a senior manager (in this case, of QF) to do this or would they just make a decision at the time witthout reference to management?

Or could the captain have expressed reservations because on his last flight he'd observed so many large items brought on board that he didn't want it to recur?

 

[leadman]

After flying the States often in the past few years, i think the National sport has become "fit the bag in the overhead locker". Especially the regional runs on the smaller aircraft, there are some mean people shoving bags into those holds and how they fit some is a miracle. There would be full blown riots there if they enforced any weight rule.

Must admit the PAX are very tolerant and if no room or cannot fit, don't seem to grumble about checking it in on the air bridge.

 

[fairhsa]

There's two elements to carry-on luggage:

- Safety: What's the SWL of the overhead bins? If everyone was jamming in 12kg bags, during heavy turbulence that would create some reasonable loads on the bins. I wouldn't want to be under one when a 12kg bag came flying out.

- Time: The slowest part of the domestic turnaround seems to be passengers trying to find overhead bin space because no one wants to wait 4mins at the end of the trip for their bag to come out on the conveyor. In doing so, we're collectively wasting more time during boarding and disembarkation.

It's only a matter of time before the QF/VA introduce Basic Economy fares with on overhead carry-on allowance.

There are some airports where checked bags take FOREEVER to arrive. In Manila, for example, they x-ray all the arriving bags and it can take an hour. In Hong Kong they have "issues" with baggage handlers and sometimes luggage takes an hour. If you are on a business trip time is money. I would be happy if luggage arrived everywhere in 4 minutes. But actually I have never seen it take 4 mins, not even Hobart where you can see the truck bring it in from just outside the door!

 

[fairbasa]

There are some airports where checked bags take FOREEVER to arrive. In Manila, for example, they x-ray all the arriving bags and it can take an hour. In Hong Kong they have "issues" with baggage handlers and sometimes luggage takes an hour. If you are on a business trip time is money. I would be happy if luggage arrived everywhere in 4 minutes. But actually I have never seen it take 4 mins, not even Hobart where you can see the truck bring it in from just outside the door!

I should clarify: 4mins from you arriving at the carousel to when the bag comes out (i.e. how long it delays you).

Fly from SYD to MEL with me on my next business trip and we'll get the stopwatches out

 

[Hopsabroad]

Never understood this safety issue, since they don't weigh passengers as well.
Should be a combined total of your weight and bag.

 

[Melburnian1]

There are some airports where checked bags take FOREEVER to arrive. In Manila, for example, they x-ray all the arriving bags and it can take an hour. In!

My most recent experience in Manila was about 25 minutes - faster than Melbourne and Sydney international.

The worst has been 40 minutes up there, again not as bad as in Australia on occasion.

 

[fairbasa]

Never understood this safety issue, since they don't weigh passengers as well.
Should be a combined total of your weight and bag.

Safety is not just about overall aircraft mass but what is the SWL of the bin and what happens if that bag comes out for example during turbulence?

There's an interesting discussion paper on the matter here.

 

[BorisWood]

My opinion is that QF should increase the carry on limit to 10 KG and then enforce the weight and size limits. This would stop the time-wasting of people trying to squeeze over-sized bags into the overheads and ensure there is space for everyone. Being tall, I have helped many people get their bags down and I'm sure some were close to 20 kg!

 

[IrishPete]

In the past I've removed bits and pieces from the carry-on bag and put them in my jacket pockets (I always wear a jacket when travelling for just the reason of having lots of pockets; not for sartorial reasons). Books, magazines, newspapers sticking out of pockets of jacket and back pockets of jeans... Laptop held in hand. The carry-on bag ends up almost empty on these rare occasions that the weight limit has been enforced, and the airline's strictness achieves nothing because it all goes straight back in once boarded (other than the stuff I am using, which can be quite a lot actually, which means the weight isn't in the overhead locker).

I rarely want to pay for excess hold luggage, but paying a small amount more to be allowed more carry-on, or more carry-on weight, might be a useful thing.

Late last year I had a fairly expensive and flexible Etihad fare (now defunct) to Ireland that came with 2 x23kg baggage allowance. I used the opportunity to take some very heavy books and magazines as gifts.