1/13/10

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Flying is painful. Even at its finest, it’s a dreadful experience. You can take every step humanly possible to make it better – print out your boarding pass at home, check zero bags and have all of your fluids packed up in a Ziploc bag – and it’s STILL painful. This is partly due to the airlines, but is also largely due to the ignorance and malfeasance of travelers. As a rule, I expect common courtesy to take a hit any time a large number of people get packed into tight spaces – especially people in a rush. Nonetheless, an article on CNN.com about flying etiquette struck a chord with me and I thought I’d pay it forward. (http://www.cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/01/12/carry.on.tips/index.html)

I started noticing problems about a year ago when the whole “pay to check bags” practice became more or less standard across the industry. The airlines assumed that people would just pay to check bags. In reality, people just avoided it at all costs and brought more with them onto flights. All of I sudden, I had to worry about finding any overhead space if I wasn’t in the first half of travelers to board a plane. Anyone who has been among the last 20 travelers to board a plane in the last year knows this pain.

So, here are a few suggestions from the CNN article that I agreed with most:

1. Don’t put bags into overhead storage lengthwise. More bags will fit if they are all positioned perpendicular to the aisle; if your bag is too large to fit that way, it should be checked.

2. Put your larger item up top, your smaller item at your feet.

3. Wait until everyone’s bags are stowed, then lay your coat on top. Bags take priority.

These rules should always be in effect, but particularly so now that there’s even more baggage coming into the main cabin with passengers. (I personally think that if the airlines simply charged less for checking bags, like $10, a lot more people would do it and it would help alleviate some of this mess.)