Baggage claim: Trading your excess airline luggage-allowance | Hacker News Reader

Baggage claim: Trading your excess airline luggage-allowance

economist.com

38 pointsedward53 comments

>Grabr largely skirts this conundrum by having the courier do the purchasing and packing.

On the US customs declaration 6059B form[0], question 14 is:

I have commercial merchandise: (articles for sale, samples used for soliciting orders, or goods that are not considered personal effects)

Truthfully answering yes means you waste an extra 15 to 60 minutes dealing with customs and paying import duties on whatever you're bring (personal exceptions doesn't apply for commercial goods). That's assuming you're a US resident. If you're a non-resident then you better plan on sleeping in the airport that night.

Lie by answering no and 99.99% of the time you won't be caught. But 10 years down the road if the government ever have an axe to grind against you, they can just look up that confirmation email you got from Grabr and match it against the 6059B form you filled out and they got you on the hook for making false statements (18 U.S.C. § 1001)[1].

[0] http://www.immihelp.com/immigration/sample-us-customs-declar...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_false_statements

Use a throwaway email for Grabr, there's not much they can do short of a sting operation.

If they know where to look they could issue a warrant for that info, and Grabr have your credit card information.

> If they know where to look they could issue a warrant for that info, and Grabr have your credit card information.

Bitcoin funneled to paypal cash?

> Airmule, a rival, sets standard fees for deliveries: $40 for packages up to 5lb (2.3kg), or $60 if the “mule” departs within 48 hours, plus a $5 fee if the mule has to travel to pick up the package.

Uhhh.... They actually named it Airmule? Is this satire?

Yeah I read that and did a double take, they desperately need a different brand.

In case anybody is wondering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule_(smuggling)

What could possibly go wrong?

"did you pack your bags yourself? Are you carrying anything for anyone else?"

"Well I'm carrying an Airmule(tm) package. They packed it. They texted a photo to prove it was totally legit."

"Um, really sir? Please come with us"

"You've earned a free body-cavity search!"

Hope no Airmule users plan travel to the Philippines...

One big thing the article leaves out is the delivery logistics on the other end of the trip.

Let's consider the $5 watch example. For such a low-value parcel, how much time and effort will each party put into delivery/receipt? As a courier, for a mere $5 there is no way I'm going to go out of my way drop off the package to anyone. So the recipient is going to need to retrieve it from me at the airport. Are they willing to wait around for hours (or pay someone else) for me to arrive, clear customs, etc.? Because I'm certainly not going to hang around at the airport for hours for them if I'm only getting $5 - so they'd better be there on time. And that means they are going to have to pay for transportation to/from the airport (usually pretty far from the city center) on top of the cost of shipping.

All in all it seems like a pretty hard sell - mail/package couriers have already sorted out these logistics and will deliver stuff straight to your door, usually quite cheaply.

The only way I can see the economics working is avoiding import duties in countries where they are prohibitive, which of course means shifting an unacceptable risk to the courier.

Actually, if they wait for me and throw in a lift to town and I might be tempted. Airports can be seriously costly to get from/to.

Completely not worth it, against airline and government policy and an easy way to recruit drug mules. "Here, buy this thing from that suspiciously empty shop and take it across international borders."

Also $5 to buy a watch is hardly worth the time, unless your literally buying it at duty free.

> For bringing a Citizen watch to Vu in Ho Chi Minh City, you can make $5. Franz in Munich is apparently unsatisfied with the quality of coffee there, and will pay you $15 to bring him a box of San Francisco’s Blue Bottle beans. Ahmed in Cairo has seemingly spotted a good deal for an Apple Macbook Pro in Dubai, and is willing to part with $100 to have someone bring one to him.

The trouble of even downloading the app and signing up for an account isn't worth $5 to me.

Me neither, but we're part of a disappearing slice of the world where we cant be bothered. Much of the the labor force will do anything to make more than minimum wage.

Does that really apply to people flying from San Francisco to Munich?

> Much of the the labor force will do anything to make more than minimum wage.

But the subset of the labor force that takes international flights?

Those people aren't flying internationally. If you spend hundreds on an airline ticket then you wont care abbot $5

Tell that to hostel-ers around the world.

I spent several months backpacking around Europe, through Russia, and then China, and a friend of mine is pretty much a professional backpacker well into his 30's. It can be tough, and you take odd jobs when you can get them. But realistically $5 is not going to buy you a nights sleep in a dorm, it might buy you lunch, it will just buy you a coffee in some airports.

Not worth the risk for the money on offer. Knowingly being a drug mule, on the other hand, pays better.

Knowingly being a drug mule, on the other hand, pays better.

Just be careful you don't wind up in a Turkish prison. Then, what you need to do to escape is to kill the chief guard and walk out the front door wearing his uniform: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_Express_(film)

No thanks. Not the life for me.

You can get hostel beds for $15-$20 in Hong Kong, even if it doesn't get you all the way, it's a significant chunk, so little bits from various places will add up.

You can get a hostel for $25 in most places, seasoned travelers are not going to be taking unknown packages around. The people that do that sort of stuff are the people going on their first trip overseas.

"Did you pack your bags yourself?"

Be careful about what you answer. "No" is a bad answer and "yes" is OK only if 1) the content of the bag is OK and 2) you really packed it.

I can't see this as a long term viable market. Airlines obviously won't like this and it's only a matter of time until they lobby politicians to make this illegal because "terrorism"

It's a shame because I believe that loosening restrictions of airline tickets, specifically allowing for transferability would be a huge opportunity. If tickers were transferrable, the seemingly arbitrary shifts in pricing would fall considerably. The same restrictions could apply such as visa restrictions and perhaps even a limit to transferability such as 24 hours before the flight. It would be a huge win for the consumer but sadly I doubt this will happen any time soon.

Whilst my initial reaction is to agree with you, I thought the same about Uber and AirBnB.

I think the distinction is that Uber and AirBnB both correspond to underused assets that you own and control. This deals with something that you don't price or control, and is already heavily regulated. Also, one problem is that neither weight not space on a plane are very underutilized in current airlines so if this took off airlines would either a) employ a pricing scheme that effectively kills it (e.g. pricing on weight of luggage or something) or b) increase costs to flyers to correspond to increased costs to them.

Sending arbitrary packages via airlines I can't see being anything other than a security and customer service nightmare. Even without airlines actively fighting it (and with good reason) there is little possibility this will take off.

In all fairness, its upto the mule to make sure what you are taking. Seems its only is a nightmare as much as what happens now, when you transport a package for someone else.

I'm usually a "security theater" kind of guy, but having people put packages in their luggage that have been packed by strangers sure seems like an actual security problem to me. Getting someone else to unknowingly carry your bomb onto an airliner is a time-honored tradition. It lets the attacker make multiple attempts to probe security without consequences, and it avoids the troublesome part at the end where they die along with their victims.

Security aside, this can't catch on. If it started to, the airlines would have to put a stop to it or reduce baggage allowances to the point where it would be unprofitable. Like many services, they're counting on the fact that the average will be much less than the maximum. An airliner where every passenger checked their maximum would probably be overweight, and at the least would greatly cut into their profitable cargo capacity.

I was thinking more about the right to transfer the right to the baggage. So if in allowed one bag, I can sell you my bag right and you can being on two bags while I don't bring on any. But, yeah, I can see how your scenario might be a security risk. However, I will note that TSA is notoriously bad at identifying and removing banned substances so perhaps the increased risk would be negligible

> I was thinking more about the right to transfer the right to the baggage.

This is in some way already happening (in reverse) with some budget airlines or travel classes, where the default is hand baggage only, and then you top up for each checked baggage.

Even if TSA treats passenger cargo the same as commercial cargo, the airlines have a responsibility to comply with commercial cargo regulations. Your average app user looking to make $5 isn't capable of guaranteeing compliance

I doubt they can prevent me from carrying goods that I claim are mine, which i've purchased myself, as illegal. How is that any different than making my shirts and pants illegal?

Edit: I had a typo --> "I doubt the can _prevent_ me..."

Similarly, it's ridiculous how they charge for checked luggage.

Now, wait, let me finish! I don't mean in the confused sense of "lol everything should be free!"

What I mean is, checked luggage is inconvenient for the passenger (less access, have to wait), while using the least scarce part of the cabin -- they can't sell tickets to fly in the cargo hold, while they want to allocate whatever passenger-usable space they can for paying passengers.

So, if anything, they should charge for carry-on luggage while making (some level of) checked luggage free.

The system we have now -- the opposite -- creates perverse incentives all around: passengers are encouraged to avoid using the perfectly usable cargo hold, and instead, cram increasingly absurd amounts into their carry-on allotment, testing the unwillingness of airline employees to say, "sorry, you're over your limit, you'll have to check that". And then people have more pieces to deal with, choking up the loading and deplaning procedures, and bringing more of their (potentially dangerous) items through a security checkpoint...

Every time I fly, I notice a sea of people toting enormous bags, as if to say "tell me can't take this on. Just try."

I assume the airline can happily fill the hold with paid cargo instead.

This assumes they don't make any money from selling space in the cargo hold for air mail couriers.

Can't they sell carry-on space too?

Right, but if we assume passenger space trades off one-to-one for cargo hold space [1], then the airline could reallocate the overhead bins to cargo (e.g. raise the floor). Then they could sell out even more cargo space as mail. So, in equilibrium, passengers should have to "compensate" (pay a premium) for the airline's lost opportunity to rent out the space.

Instead, everyone gets some of that premium, human-usable space for free. But if people are going to get some lump of space for free, why not make it the cargo hold, which is less constrained (doesn't have to be human usable) and thus cheaper? They're effectively letting people with more expensive requirements (must be able to access my stuff during flight) be subsidized by people with less expensive requirements ("I can wait until after the flight to access my stuff").

[1] which is probably true enough to a first approximation; you could redesign the interior to have more cargo space and less passenger space

Is floor height (and thus window positioning, ...) something an airline can order customized? (genuine question, I always thought of that stuff as fixed, but I could very well be wrong)

Southwest Airlines, which has played a sort of "moneyball" game with aviation, came to the same conclusion that you did, including two checked bags in the ticket price (except they permit carry-on luggage for free). At-gate time decreases and the amount of flights increase when passengers aren't jockeying for carry-on space in the overhead compartments when they should be entering or exiting the airplane.

Frontier and Spirit airlines have adopted closer to the policy you describe. Checked luggage is $5-10 cheaper than carry-on. Their customer service posture is hostile, however. They charge for printing of boarding passes at the airport and getting a ticket altered to accommodate a lap infant (free in the US) takes over one hour on the phone.

I'm not saying I like any one of these airlines more than the other carriers. Southwest's moneyball strategy means they charge exorbitant amounts for tickets purchased within one week of the flight, even if it risks a vacancy. I prefer the consistency of the commodity carriers even though the Southwest experience is better for economy travelers.

My understanding is that they resell any extra hold space for cargo, so they do actually have a financial incentive to keep passengers' bags out of there.

EDIT: there are also costs in baggage handling though I don't know how the economics of that works out.

No thanks. The laws are so brutal in some countries, there's no way I would ever risk it. In Japan, Sudafed is illegal, which is something I would not have known if not for my friend who ran into this issue years ago.

And in some countries like Singapore and Indonesia, even a small amount of drugs will get you executed. Too much risk for so little return. Who knows what they are packing in their package, and it really seems like drugs and other illegal items would be relish at the opportunity to use this service.

Shipping with a contract carrier provides lots of benefits. The method described here only increases risk for all parties.

Given the current political climate and default skepticism and fear that comes with air traveling, I would not take $50 to take someone else's goods. Heck I double check if one of my friends of family member try to send an item with me (that has happened like 1 out of 1000 times I have traveled). This app has funding from Russia and it might be a success there. Sure they just wanted a media footprint catapulted by US media outlets.

What I would like to see is airlines encouraging me to check in a few days/weeks earlier and state how many bags I am planning to check in (international travel as domestic airlines dont allow free check in bags except southwest ). If none or less then I should be compensated in some sort of air miles. Then the airline can sell the extra space to a private shipping company. No need to turn travelers into Uber for taco bells for a nostalgic digital nomad living in Reykjavik.

cool idea, but I just imagine someone getting in trouble for transporting something that is not allowed.

Interesting - I was expecting this to be about trading your luggage allowance with other passengers on the same plane, which is a much tinier audience but might avoid some of the risks.

This is exactly something I could see low paid employees at a US regional airline doing to make some extra money.

I've watched enough Australia border security episodes to know I would never use this service.

This seems like a very big risk. You are actually putting your name on a baggage that is passing trough a high security/high traffic control situation.

I would never do this for someone I didn't trust personally.

You didnt read the details. You're also tasked with provisioning and packing the thing . Eg: goto walmart and buy me M&Ms, fly them to london to deliver to me.

not with Airmule, with them the packages are pre-packed

Gotcha, because it was first mentioned I was thinking the article was about grabr. But I see now its about the whole idea in general. Yes, taking an unknown prepackaged ("ticking"?) container onto the plane for a stranger seems to either be 1) stupid or 2) vastly undercompensated.

The details say that there are two startups, one of which has exactly this problem:

> Grabr largely skirts this conundrum by having the courier do the purchasing and packing. With Airmule, the goods come pre-packaged by the person sending them.

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