Calidris Controversy: Carrying On

Is helping someone else with their carry-on showing common courtesy or merely enabling people who feel entitled?

A travel Facebook group I follow recently showed a post from a woman who said that if you can’t lift your own carry-on bag into the overhead bin on the airplane, you have no business bringing it on and you should check it. I’ve never seen such a flurry of vehement comments; dozens upon dozens within a couple of hours. Obviously something that a lot of people feel strongly about.

It wasn’t just the original rant that was interesting, but the associated tangents that popped up.

One person wrote that if you can’t lift your own bag, you should check it, and if you can’t afford to check it, you shouldn’t be traveling. That’s pretty harsh.

Then there was the woman who vented about people who use the space above her seat for their bag. How dare they? She stated smugly that if she finds the compartment above her seat full, and discovers that the bags don’t belong to people in that row, she will remove the bags to make room for her own.

Many years ago, I read an informative and amusing book titled something like Guerilla Flying. The first and crucial point that the book made was this: Your interests and those of the airlines are fundamentally at odds. You want to travel economically and comfortably. They want to make money, which means cramming as many bodies as they are allowed into the smallest space possible. In addition, they basically don’t care about your comfort; they know you often have no choice in whether or not to fly their airline, which is why they can get away with outrageous behaviour like physically assaulting customers while forcing them off the plane to accommodate “bumping” due to overbooking.

The issue of luggage is a case in point. In the good old days, checked bags were free. People were sensible and put heavy items in their checked bags. They put valuables and things they needed for their flight in their carry-on.

Then airlines began charging large fees for checked bags. Now people had strong motivation to try and “get by” with just carry-on. They began stuffing everything into their little bag. They began trying to sneak over-size and over-weight bags through as carry-on. The more carry-on there is, the more passengers must “compete” for bin space. I have been on more than one flight where I was one of the last passengers to board and, as a result, the bins were full. That was annoying and inconvenient to me, but I accepted it without complaint. When it comes to space on a plane, it’s a dog-eat-dog world and I had come out unlucky on those occasions.

If I had been the woman I mentioned earlier, I would have hauled someone else’s case out of the bin over my seat. But what would then prevent that person (or someone else) from hauling my bag out? There’s no law that says the bin above your seat belongs to you. Sure, it’s nice when you can have your bag near you, but if not, you take what you can get.

What I find ironic is how often these days the flight attendants end up begging for volunteers who will give up their carry-on and allow it to be loaded below. I can’t help but reflect that if the airlines didn’t charge for checked bags, more people would check their bags in the first place, and there wouldn’t be as much carry-on, avoiding the whole problem. Duh.

As for the issue of people not being able to lift their own bags, I’ve never seen anyone blatantly abusing the good will of others by demanding that they assist. Although I’m a woman neither particularly strong nor tall, I am still taller, stronger, and abler than some people. If I see someone struggling with their bag, I try to help. And I have been, on occasion, the beneficiary of similar assistance. I think it’s common courtesy, like holding the door for someone who is carrying packages. I have never seen anyone thus aided who did not show genuine gratitude.

One surprising thing that I picked up from the Facebook posting was that flight attendants are not supposed to help passengers lift their bags into the overhead bins. I had no idea—I always assumed this was part of their job. But apparently, it’s a worksafe issue. I’d be curious to know whether this is true, and if so, is it true across all airlines?

Do you have a pet peeve about carry-on? Are you a “try-to-get-by-with-only-carry-on” person or do you check a bag and take minimal baggage into the cabin? Let me know in a comment.

 

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2 Comments

  1. Great article about a very common airline travel experience!

  2. First step–enforce the rules already in place?

    I like the convenience of overhead luggage for short trips–no lost luggage, no waiting at the carousel, but I am very careful about the size limits for each airline. In face, I test it at the check-in desk using the little “cages” they have to show the allowable size.

    If all airlines asked travellers to fit them into the demo slot on display, and then charged you if it didn’t fit, we’d have more people bringing on just the size allowed, and no more sneaking of bags “just a few inches bigger,” which quickly add up.

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