To this day, I still don't take more than a very small backpack on board any aircraft with me. I don't understand people taking huge roll ons with them in the passenger compartment?
Is it really too much to check the bags in and wait at the baggage carousel at the other end to retrieve them? Airlines need to can the exorbitant baggage fees to encourage people to check bags into the hold rather than try and take their entire 2 weeks vacation worth of stuff with them in the cabin.
It is particularly annoying that on almost every flight I am on, I have to remove my very small and light backpack (usually just containing a book and my phone, headphones etc.) from the overhead bins and am forced to stow it under my feet in front of me (I am quite tall, and prefer nothing on the floor in front of me to prevent me stretching my legs in the limited room available) in order to make room for hundreds of others who can't bear to wait a few more minutes at the destination airport. I try to travel light and take up as little room as possible on the plane, and I get penalised because too many people try to do the opposite. It is a lose-lose endgame.
Increase the incentives to check bags in the hold, restrict carry on even further - that should make it a much more pleasant cabin experience, even in a non emergency.
> Is it really too much to check the bags in and wait at the baggage carousel at the other end to retrieve them?
Yes. For me, that's really too much, if there's an alternative that's much quicker to check in (online), must quicker at arrival, doesn't have the risk of losing your luggage, and (in today's world) much cheaper as well.
We make it a point in our family to be able to do all our travel with carry-ons only, even if it's a multi-week trip to the other side of the world.
The last 2 times we checked in our luggage, part of the luggage did not arrive. If you have a carefully orchestrated vacation going from one place to the next, that can be a huge hassle.
Why do you like risking to loose your bags and constantly add 30minutes to your trips waiting for bags at the carousel? I never check bags and it's never a cost thing, only speed and convenience.
>>Is it really too much to check the bags in and wait at the baggage carousel at the other end to retrieve them?
Yes, because the airlines I usually fly with have a single manned desk for check-ins, so whenever I fly with anything to check I literally have to add 60-90 minutes just for standing in a queue to check it in. It's obscene. So I'd rather travel "light" and fit everything I need in a bag that's allowed on board and go straight through departures. And then of course there are things I wouldn't ever check in - my laptop and camera - so they need to come with me on-board anyway.
I solve the problem by always paying extra for exit seats - usually because they have extra legroom, but also because in an emergency the number of potentially stupid and deadly people between me and the exits is as low as possible.
I also find it particularly galling that I can't even put my day pack in an overhead bin because of all the other people who already slowed down loading as they wrangle their roll-away and their backpack (and purse and jacket) onto the plane, who will drastically slow down exit the same way. I've had to waste more of my life waiting for them than in bag-check lines.
Picking up bags at the carousel is another matter. That can take significant time. That is a legitimate concern, even though I personally choose otherwise. I bought a decent bag and pack it properly, so I've never had a problem with damage (~30 trips and still going strong). I've had my bag delayed twice, once for more than a day. There are tradeoffs, but mostly I think people act selfishly by trying to save themselves a few bucks and a few minutes. It's a Prisoners' Dilemma kind of thing. Those are individually rational decisions, but when everyone makes the same decision it ends up being worse for everyone.
Do they though? Or is that just people's perception? It's a common case in life that people operate on extremely inflated perceptions of risk, often related to how news invert risk perceptions (the more you hear about something on the news, the less likely it is to happen; journalists and article writers don't report on stuff that happens regularly).
The last 2 times I checked my luggage, at least one piece didn't arrive.
In one of those cases, it was our camping gear that we needed a few days later (luckily we got it the morning we left the hotel for that campground, which was a 4 hour drive from the hotel). The other case, it was literally all my cloths for a 5 day stay. It arrived 2 days later. (The airline paid for essentials.)
I know that the official statistics of lost luggage are very low. I'm sure that these number don't come close to reality, probably due to some technicality (e.g. 'lost' only counts when it never showed up, instead of showing up after a few days.)
When you plan vacations that go from one place to the other, with hotels, cars, and activities booked everywhere, the last thing you want to happen is throw it all into disarray because your luggage didn't arrive. (And, yes, we usually plan for a day or 2 close to the airport in case flights get cancelled etc.)
I am a frequent traveller and they lose my luggage all the time, about 5% of my trips. In case you are wondering, this is at western airports and with "good" airlines.
Funny (?) enough, most often they lose my luggage on direct flights.
Quite frequently when I finally get my luggage back, it is damaged.
As another anecdata, my mother visits her home country every year, and they have lost her luggage EACH TRIP for over 15 years now.
I was speaking anecdotally, but after an airline lost my luggage once I made a point to never check a bag again unless I absolutely had to. And the process for getting reimbursed for lost luggage is an enormous pain in the ass.
As you said, baggage fees can be high especially on budget airlines. But in the rest of your comment you totally ignore that and assume it’s simply about convenience.
After having to live without my luggage for days due to a cancelled flight in a foreign city (where they wouldn't return our bags) I'm never checking again unless I'm literally moving internationally.
Yes, it is too much, because I lost count how many luggages I had to replace du to careless handling by ground crews and that is assuming that we actually get it back.
> I have to remove my very small and light backpack [...] from the overhead bins and am forced to stow it under my feet in front of me
I put my foot down when people ask for this. I paid to check my baggage in so I can enjoy the free space under the seat in front of me. This tiny backpack is my carry on. People who want to us that space for their giant bag can go get bent.
They should actually bill the carry on by volume, excessive carry on is one of the thing slowing on and outboarding the most, costing airlines money in the process.
Is it really too much to check the bags in and wait at the baggage carousel at the other end to retrieve them? Airlines need to can the exorbitant baggage fees to encourage people to check bags into the hold rather than try and take their entire 2 weeks vacation worth of stuff with them in the cabin.
It is particularly annoying that on almost every flight I am on, I have to remove my very small and light backpack (usually just containing a book and my phone, headphones etc.) from the overhead bins and am forced to stow it under my feet in front of me (I am quite tall, and prefer nothing on the floor in front of me to prevent me stretching my legs in the limited room available) in order to make room for hundreds of others who can't bear to wait a few more minutes at the destination airport. I try to travel light and take up as little room as possible on the plane, and I get penalised because too many people try to do the opposite. It is a lose-lose endgame.
Increase the incentives to check bags in the hold, restrict carry on even further - that should make it a much more pleasant cabin experience, even in a non emergency.