Living in a post checked baggage world
· Sep 24, 01:55 PM
I’ve been doing more than my fair share of travel the last few days, and I’m quite happy to be logging serious couch time right now, with no plans to leave Putney for at least a few days. Almost 12 hours of sleep last night went a long way towards getting me feeling normal again, which is a nice change from the zombie-like existence I experienced for the 24 hours that was SLC-RDM (sleep in Bend) RDM-SEA-DTW-BDL (Putney).
Based on yesterday’s experience, I’d say that most travelers are carrying a lot more of their stuff on the plane with them. This should come as no surprise to anyone – nobody wants to pay an extra $50 or $80 on top of their ticket – but it does create some new bottlenecks in the travel cycle. Sunday and Monday (flying to Utah and back) I was on a little regional jet, the kind where you don’t actually expect to carry on your carry-ons. You put them on the cart, the go into the baggage hold and come back out for you to pick up on your back in to the airport. That worked as smoothly as it always does, except for the fact that the baggage cart seemed a little fuller than normal. Not really a big deal, I suspect there was less checked baggage, and it all got to the other end.
Yesterday however, I was on some real jets going across the country. I was in the last third of all passengers to board, and by the time we got down the jetway the flight attendants were in the process of checking every bag bigger than a small backpack. I was more than happy to be relieved of my rolling carry-on for the duration of my travels (and save the $25 extra bag fee), but it seems like an incredible waste of time and energy to turn the flight attendants into check-in agents, but that’s pretty much what happened. While I waited in line for 10 minutes for someone to hand-write my new bag tag I couldn’t help but wonder how many delayed flights and missed connections it takes before the airlines start to lose most of the money they’re making from charging for those checked bags.
I’m not even going to get into the longer (slower) security lines or the joys of sitting on the runway while the plane is de-fueled. I will be so glad when flying is no longer a regular part of my life.
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