Why Airplane Boarding Got So Ridiculous | Hacker News Reader

Why Airplane Boarding Got So Ridiculous

nymag.com

76 pointsprostoalex110 comments

The airlines chose to turn a simple logistical procedure into a silly game of caste and cash. Passengers chose to play the game and try to win, beating their fellow passengers. Moving 100 people 100 feet takes 45 minutes and 5 crew members to organize. Instead of everybody working together to make it smooth, passengers compete against each other and the airlines. Passengers try and get the largest bag possible on the plane free of charge. They try to get on before other passengers so they can take up lots of overhead space and normally try to put their bags in bins closer to the front than their seats. Later passengers who sit up front then have to put their bags closer the the back of the plane and then fight to get back there when it is time to get off. They shove, squeeze and smash bags into the already filled bins rougher than any bag handler could dream of in a desperate attempt to avoid checking. The designers and players of the game all seem to work very hard in making the simple task of getting on a plane very difficult, slow and unpleasant.

The whole game is so bizarrely penalizing that passengers actually want to be first to get onto a cramped plane and sit down, where they will be cramped and sitting hours on end. While flight is a modern miracle, flying is like the Jerry Springer show- it is humans at their worst and is depressing to watch.

Why don't they just put seat numbers and dividers on the bins? Your luggage fits in your bin or it gets checked at $25.

Travelling for one week or less and all my luggage (clean underwear and toothbrush) fits into a small backpack that I still can't find room for when I board late. Being tall means under the seat does't work well since my feet are there. Anything less than ten hours drive is a road trip for me.

I just got back from an American Airlines (I typically fly Delta, and haven't ever experienced anything quite like this) flight just like this. I was boarding group 5 of 8. 1-4 are the special premium "play the game" passes. I had PAID EXTRA to sit in row 7 near the front of the plane, because I had an extremely short layover and knew I wouldn't have any time to waste.

But when I got on the plane, the overhead bins all the way back to row 21 were full. So I had to go to the back of the plane, and then fight my way back through the crowds to the front of the plane. And then when the flight landed, me and about 5 other passengers spent the next 15 minutes slowly working our way backwards, seat by seat to try to get to our bags as people got off the plane.

Luckily I'm a runner and was able to catch my flight, but I'm going to be avoiding flying American unless I absolutely can't avoid it. It was stupidity.

> Why don't they just put seat numbers and dividers on the bins? Your luggage fits in your bin or it gets checked at $25.

a) Bags are different sizes so no way that would be efficient (dividers)

b) Not everyone has a bag that needs to go in the bin (who gets to use their space?)

c) There isn't enough space for everyone to have a bag is my guess evenly divided.

They could do a better job of keeping track who brings what on board but they are obviously trying to smartly avoid having negative interactions with passengers.

> Instead of everybody working together to make it smooth

Sure as soon as everyone else cooperates (which they won't) it's a great idea (and only an idea). What else in life with such a large number of people ever works this way?

Southwest avoids most of these problems. Two free checked bags removes pressure from the overheads, no first class seats or extra legroom seats for extra money, no reserved seats (just a line up number system). Lots of direct flights and no real hub system. I try and fly them when I can.

The only reason I prefer JetBlue for domestic flights is because I've always flown out of BOS or NYC. If that wasn't the case then I would probably choose Southwest as my domestic airline even though I almost never bring a checked bag on domestic flights.

I flew SW for the first time a few weeks ago (I live in France). The flight was great but I discovered something I have never seen elsewhere : the bus stop plane.

I flew from Phoenix to Oakland with a stop in Portland. The ticket was PHX-OAK, people got off the plane at Portland, some more got in. A bus stop in short. It took 2.5 + 1.5h for a nominally 1h40min flight.

Isn't that just a normal, non-direct flight with a layover?

If every seat number had bin space allocated for it, that space would not be large enough to fit even the smallest carryon suitcase. Overhead space only works because not every seat uses a suitcase's worth of space (and stuff smaller than a suitcase usually gets crammed under the seat in front of you).

Author is implying that he only fears whatever time he needs to wait for checked bag. I find it ridiculous - air travel is already an all day long enterprise even on short flights - get to the airport, then minimum 2 hours for all checks, then flight itself, then check on arrival (up to 1 hour), then baggage if any and then get out of the airport. Baggage wait time is usually a rounding error in all this. What is really important is that people usually carry fragile and expensive things in hand luggage and is forced to check it in there is a high probility of it breaking or theft. This is a real reason for fighting for overhead space. Also losing all your luggage (checked in and forced checked in) or even delaying it by few days is significantly more painful if only one item was lost/delayed, especially if it was a trip from home to another place (not reverse).

And if you're travelling into a country with painful immigration processes (e.g. USA), the time spent waiting for your baggage can be the difference between a 15mn cue at immigration and a 2h cue at customs EDIT: the big queue is at customs not immigration

I think you get your baggage after immigration.

At every airport I've flown into in the US baggage claim is after immigration.

You're right, I was conflating immigration and customs

Traveling to U.S.A. is a pretty unique experience, depending on your visa/status. And I don't mean it in a good way... With my E-2 visa crossing immigration at JFK is anywhere between 20 minutes (very lucky) and 1 hour. To be fair it has improved massively, it used to be 2+ hours. In any case my checked baggage will be waiting for me, not the other way around.

But check-in is far worse: nobody knows how to handle an E-2 visa. Last time I went to Japan it took 4 JAL employees 20 minutes to figure out which numbers to enter where on their system. Still two hours less than Air France that may or may not have someone to take care of passengers that cannot check in on their DIY terminals... Hence I try to avoid Air France when flying to US, even though otherwise I quite enjoy flying with them.

But really, there's no reason why waiting for checked luggage should be a thing. I'm always thoroughly impressed when flying domestic Japanese flights: get off the plane, walk to the luggage pick-up area, pick up luggage. No waiting time: checked bags are already there. I don't even know how they do that. Aéroport de Paris should send a team or two over there and study hard...

I used to fly semi-regularly on an E-3 visa. The online check-in and airport kiosks usually couldn't accept it, but the customer service staff never had a problem with it.

Arriving in the US was a whole other matter. They often weren't familiar with the E-3 rules for things like whether the 2 years starts when the visa was issued or date of first arrival. They also wrote the wrong visa type one time, which would have affected my employment authorization. Had to guide them thru it a few times.

I’m assuming you don’t fly regularly for business. If you did you wouldn’t call it an “all day enterprise” as pretty often you’re flying and actually having the meetings on the same day.

When you do fly constantly for short business trips the suggestion of adding checked bags to the mix becomes ridiculous. It adds time and unpredictability both before and after the flight, as check in time is more strict with a bag.

Repeat the process a bunch of times and have the errant 40 minute wait for your bag on a delayed flight that landed at midnight, or have it lost (even once in 50 trips can be a “regular” occurance), or have your flight cancelled but see another flight you could jump on instead, and you’ll realize having checked bags is a massive liability for business traveling.

Indeed, but travelling business you usually aren't facing the same issues on bin space

Expense policies are as often as not economy for short haul.

Do employers actually force employees to buy basic economy tickets? I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but so far, my employer doesn't allow those tickets - most of us have to fly "lowest reasonable fare", which generally means within 20% of the lowest normal economy fare for the route.

Not basic economy, but economy for short domestic is common. That still could mean boarding group 5 out of 6 or so for travelers with no airline status.

Have a friend who's company made him fly out on a Sunday afternoon (thus having to pay him both overtime and a per diem) and stay at a hotel (which the company obviously paid for), because there where only business class tickets left for the Monday morning flight and company had a strict "no business class" policy. The price difference between the two tickets was less than $100.

Yeah, I've seen similar stupidity at my employer. Most recently a trip to San Diego (from DC) for a convention. Convention was Sunday-Wednesday and travel was only approved on those days.

Not only were the Saturday fares less expensive by about $300, which was roughly in line with hotel cost, they were also direct. All the Sunday flights had layovers in the normal mid-western hubs. Seemed like a no-brainer to allow the Saturday travel, but nope, it required special approval from a VP.

A lot of corporate employers have an internal travel agent. I.e. you tell them where/when and they book the tickets for you.

Also in European shorthaul a lot of airlines don't even have business and for those that do you're normally looking a lot more than 20% more than the base fare.

I very rarely fly for business and usually it is a long process - 4 hour flight plus customs plus far away airports. I saw "Up In The Air" (very cool movie) as suggested below but it is still unconnected to me, can't imagine working that way. But yeah, I suppose short and regular business trips in the same day with actual business, have different requirements.

My good friend actually came to visit me recently and they "lost" her checked bag. I say "lost" here because they "knew" where it was, but the plane kept getting delayed. Apparently it ended up on a separate plane that happened to arrive at the same airport. They originally told us to wait at the airport until it arrived, assuring us it was only going to be another 30 minutes. We ended up leaving, without her bag, 2 hours later. They said they would call us when it arrived. No such luck. We went back to the airport in the morning and it had just shown up and nobody knew why they were holding it. I understand if they misplace the bag, but to string us along for almost a whole day waiting on a call from them that never came is really just a miserable experience.

Tell the airline where you're staying and where they can deliver the bag. Ask them the policy on reimbursing the purchases that you'll need to make to get by in the meantime.

I've had an airline drive our bags 50+ miles to deliver them, but they are not likely to open with that as their initial offer.

Honestly, I will have to try this. I am a pretty passive person so my head usually goes to "just nod and say ok a bunch" during confrontations like this but the luggage experience had me pretty upset. Thank you for the advice!

I had a trip where one (of several) bags got diverted and ended up arriving a day late - Delta got it to us ~125 km away in time for the second day of skiing. I don't remember if they comped the ski gear we bought in the interim, though...

It strongly depends on whether you're a "few times a year leisure traveller", or "multiple times a week business traveller".

First few minutes of "Up in the air" will give you a good idea of how strongly business travellers optimize. At my peak when I was doing 75+ flights/year, I would leave home at 7am to be on the 8am flight - this included taxi, security, boarding, and 20 minute margin for unexpected issues.

I pack light and tight into a backpack that goes underneath my seat, because the flights on Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal Canadian corridor are 80+% priority status, daily travellers, and they ferociously fight for overhead space.

Put it a different way - a 20 minute annoyance once a year is, bad but meh. 20 minute annoyance twice a week for a year - that's FULL WORK WEEK lost.

I fly out of Atlanta (the world’s busiest airport). While it’s usually not that bad, I would never take a chance on arriving less than the recommended two hours.

It's two intersecting curves:

- Risk, which is inversely related to early arrival

- Wasteage, which is directly related to early arrival

The slope of the curves is largely impacted by:

- Personal risk tolerance; but also

- Frequency of flying

Personally:

* When I fly for vacations, I am "arrive early and wait" type of person - typically 3 hrs or more. I have no problems being relaxed and reading at the airport :).

* But when I fly weekly for work, I just can't _afford_ to be that early. The math is simple - 2hrs early times two flights a week times 45 weeks (assume few weeks of vacation or working remotely etc) is... 180 hours wasted at the airport. Holly crap, I just spent a month of work at the terminal!

If I only arrive one hour before flight, I reduce that number by 90hrs. That's more than two work weeks saved - for how much additional risk have I taken? How many incidents will I incur? If I miss one out of every X flights due to reduced margin, am I still ahead?

A lot of it is down to routine. I believe (but don't have math for this) that I have higher risk on my vacation trips, even with increased margin & time, as I don't have the routine down. Whereas on my weekly trips, 15 minutes is plenty.

(I fly out of Pearson, which is about half the yearly throughput of Atlanta. Over 7 years, I have never missed a flight due to these margins. I did once miss a flight because I forgot my wallet - since then I have two wallets: one stays in the travel backpack, always; and one is in my pants. I like systems :)

I just re-watched first 10 minutes of Up-in-the-air to see if my hypothesis holds true. I wasn't as frequent of a flyer when I first saw it, but now I am even more convinced it's filmed by somebody who understands :).

It's about: 1. There existing a system 2. You understanding the system, thoroughly 3. You using the system, thoroughly

Watch: he walks through the metal detector at specific pace, with his body in specific pose, to reduce the risk of accidental set of. We all do it subconsciously, after a while. He knows what's in which pocket. He doesn't fumble for ID, search for boarding pass, it's all always within subconscious reach. He packs consistently, knows how many bins he'll need and how to unpack and pack for the security line. He has priority, status, pre-check, and everything else he needs. His demeanor is low threat, he obeys the requirements, and reduces friction efficiently at every step.

Simply put he doesn't need two hours of margin, and yet his risk is slim to none :>

[and this is why on the other hand,when I travel for vacation, I do need hours of margin:). The system is disrupted and efficiencies are lost]

Makes sense. But there is also the unknown of traffic to get to the airport which could vary as much as an hour. But, I guess that can be partially alleviated if I just drove to the park and ride and took the train. But even that could vary a lot as far as I live from the nearest train station.

Also, if you’re waiting at the airport for an additional hour, is that time wasted? If you were working at home during that hour or doing something for leisure, couldn’t you do the same at the airport?

Good point: * Monday mornings (outbound), for most people with relatively fixed sleeping habits, going an hour earlier to the airport (say, depart home 5am instead of 6 am for 7am flight, or equivalent) is an hour's sleep lost which cannot be substituted at the airport, and reduces your effectiveness for the day.

* On return legs, in principle you can substitute airport time for work time, but in my experience it's never one to one exchange.

Re traffic: I agree with you in principle; but I find traffic is unpredictable for changing destinations. For repeatable fixed-circumstances situations, less so - i.e. On Monday morning, at 6am, from home to airport, on same route, traffic is actually fairly predictable over time.

As someone that flies short haul in europe fairly often by far the biggest factor for me is having to wait for my bag. Not only is it the entirely random amount of time it takes (from the luggage beating you there through to the best part of an hour) but it means I can't book an uber until after i've picked it up / anyone picking me up has gone over the N minutes free / I miss a train and have to wait 30 minutes for the next one.

Time on the flight seated is not lost. I can work from a laptop, read, sleep etc. Many airports outside of peak you can comfortably arrive less than 30 mins before the flight (easy if there is reliable public transport, quiet roads, your company is paying or its a €30 flight so you don't care too much if you miss it and have to get the next one).

Whereas the valuables problem is easily fixed. Phone in pocket and 14" laptop sleeve fits in the back of the seat or both in a much smaller bag.

> its a €30 flight

Oh my Europe!

>> minimum 2 hours for all checks

You don’t fly much.

I fly Berlin - Warsaw (my two "hometowns") quite regularly. Takes me 15-20 minutes to get to the airport, then around 10-20 minutes inside, thanks to the awesome Tegel airport. I usually leave my flat about an hour before the flight. Frequently end up with 10+ minutes buffer of idle waiting.

Around 50 minutes later I land in Warsaw (another awesome international airport). Another 20-25 minutes later and I'm at my mother's house. All in all under 3 hours time.

Just for reference the same route by car takes about 5h and by train around 7h.

I know my example is very specific and understand it cannot apply to most of the flights but still.

I generally leave my home 1 hour before the flight then leave the landing airport immediately since I don't have checked in baggage. The entire endevour is around 1.5 hours + flight duration.

I fly Gdansk-London Luton, less frequently these days, but I used to do it every week. It was definitely not an all day enterprise. I even managed to get back on the same day few times.

To get to the airport on time I need to leave home at 4am. Not exactly convenient, but doable. A bit over an hour to get to the airport, then I have about 45 min at the airport to get through security, eat breakfast, wait for my flight etc. 6am flight leaves, just under 2 hours later it lands at Luton, but there is a 1h time difference so it lands at 7am local time. Now the worst part of the whole journey, getting through UK customs - if I'm lucky it may take 10 minutes. Otherwise if lots of planes just landed there is a huge queue and an hour long wait. However, it is very rare that I would leave the destination airport later than 8am local time. Then there is a 10 min bus ride to the Luton Parkway train station. Fast trains to London leave every 10-15min. I'm usually in central London no later than 8:30-45. Just enough time to get a coffee before starting work at 9am.

Things like this are definitely all in a person's head.

Houston airport used to have lots of complaints from people about bag wait times.

To resolve the problem they moved the arrival gates as far away from the baggage claim as possible, making people have to walk 12 times farther to get their bags.

Complaints about waiting for checked bags dropped to near zero.

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/opinion/sunday/why-waitin...

That's brilliant. Dark, but brilliant.

I've often thought, waiting at the baggage carousel, that I'd be willing to unload other peoples' bags just to get mine out faster. But really it's just because waiting is so terrible.

Even when I was flying out of ORD, I doubt I ever arrived more than 30 minutes before boarding started, and I was always early enough to grab a bite and chill for a bit. In DCA I tend to clock the "door to gate" time at 35-40 minutes, and that's from out in Bethesda.

Nowadays I probably arrive 15 minutes before boarding to my local airport, which is tiny, so it's never a problem.

So the author argues that baggage handling is more efficient and trackable than before, but baggage fees are "a disincentive to check luggage"?

I accept that baggage fees are designed to mask a lower advertised fare and/or extract more pax revenue. And I don't understand the mad rush to skip baggage claim and get out of the airport 15 minutes quicker. Baggage tracking and recovery is indeed a lot quicker and I've never had a problem. And the lines at car rental desks and taxi pickups didn't magically get shorter in my recent observations. In fact they're longer.

I suppose that makes me an outlier, but the ~$25 is worth taking all the stress out of queueing at the gate and trying to get on as quickly as possible. Your time/value equation might be different.

> I suppose that makes me an outlier, but the ~$25 is worth taking all the stress out of queueing at the gate and trying to get on as quickly as possible. Your time/value equation might be different.

I think the math just starts changing when you're not traveling by yourself. If it's even a small family of 3, traveling with checked luggage is suddenly $150 roundtrip. Sure, largely insignificant compared to the cost of the tickets themselves, but still enough to make you think twice about it.

I've been flying my family overseas from the time my children were infants, and you're right that the fees are insignificant when you're paying the current rates to fly 4 people during high travel season.

But I'll just add another casual observation that people travel with way too much shit.

For a family of 4 we've never needed more than 2 suitcases, and maybe only one is packed to the max. If I had 200 pounds of luggage (+ carryons) for 4 people staying 2 weeks in Europe I'd probably be reconsidering a few things.

> But I'll just add another casual observation that people travel with way too much shit.

One thing I started doing after trips is doing a "post-mortem" of sorts, basically:

1) How much did I use this item I packed?

2) Would it have changed my trip significantly without this item?

If the answer is "rarely" and "not really", I don't pack it next time.

And be careful if you have an overnight layover (or just crossing midnight), or some airlines will attempt to charge you baggage fees per leg.

Delta tried to do that to me until a helpful baggage claims person assisted.

* It costs money to check a bag. It costs nothing to carry it on.

* There is a non zero chance of a checked bag getting lost or damaged. The chances of that happening to a carry on are essentially 0.

* 15 minutes to get your checked bag may be the average. Sometimes the carosel has already started by the time I get there, but other times, I've waited nearly an hour (looking at you Salt Lake City).

So what your saying is that the cost + added risk + added time is worth it to you vs queueing at the gate to fight for overhead. I suggest you pay the $15 upgrade to get in the front of the queue instead of the $25 bag fee and just carry on.

It costs money to check a bag. It costs nothing to carry it on.

If I can spend an extra half hour in the lounge doing a little light work or relaxing before the flight instead of jostling in line, it definitely has value.

Like I said, the value of your time will probably differ from mine. For me, $25 is a bargain.

> It costs money to check a bag. It costs nothing to carry it on.

Depends on the size of the bag. Critical to the discussion, since you'd only be checking luggage too big to put in an overhead.

My time/value equation includes the experience of having had my luggage lost enough times that checking baggage only feels worthwhile when I'm not especially going to need whatever it is I would be checking on the other end of the trip, and in that case, why bother bringing it? I'd rather bring less stuff and be sure of having it. Saving money on baggage fees and time waiting for the loading/unloading process is a nice bonus.

But that just demonstrates why the existing process is poorly designed: it encourages wasteful activity: overloading the bins and randomly screwing people who board later, a mad fight to get in first when everyone leaves at the same time, and underusing the more efficient checked bag system.

Another interesting wrench I've noticed: People who've lost their checked bags at some point.

I know a few people who had their checked luggage lost by the airline, and the aftermath was so painful that they basically refuse to check luggage ever again.

I am curious whether the boarding process has gotten significantly longer over time, and whether that costs airlines more money than they receive in baggage fees. I'm sure the answer is "not by a longshot", but still curious nonetheless.

>the aftermath was so painful that they basically refuse to check luggage ever again.

I know this is why people don't check luggage, but knowing the possibility exists makes it possible to plan around. I don't often fly with more than a backpack, but when I do I always check.

Nothing I don't mind losing forever, nothing that can't be temporarily replaced. If bag gets delayed only have the airline deliver somewhere staffed to receive a package (like an office/hotel) and with plenty of time for the delivery to be made, or get it from the baggage office on the way out.

You can plan around it, but that doesn't make it any less stressful necessarily during an activity that's already of varying degrees of stressful (traveling).

If I lose all my clothes in my luggage that isn't really a huge deal (I can buy new clothes), but it certainly puts a major damper on the trip.

This author is just now figuring out that checking bags is over-demonized and that cloth duffles are dope?

This is some real rookie shit. So much so that I suspect flight tech has passed me by and the people at the front are sharing outdated metagame strategy with the masses.

I don't even get why everyone has these roller carry-ons. I have a soft-sided backpack designed specifically for air travel. It always fits in the bin and it's way faster to carry than something that rolls on the ground with wheels. And ditching all the hard sides and wheels makes everything weigh less.

Do you have any links to check those out? Thanks!

I have the "Sky Train" bag from Red Oxx and I love it. It's a bit expensive, but it's very well made. I've abused mine a lot over a ten-year period and nothing has broken. The shape and size makes it perfect for overhead bins.

https://www.redoxx.com/sky-train/91019/product

do you also bring a "personal item"? for me the backpack is my personal item, so my carry on needs to be something convenient to carry while already wearing a backpack.

I have a laptop bag, but I usually don't bring it and just put my laptop in my backpack.

I've taken to traveling with this[1] bag from Osprey. I typically put my cameras and tablet in a separate small backpack, though for shorter trips all my stuff will fit in the Osprey (just in case I get really unlucky with overhead - I will not gate-check my electronics). For longer walks, I strap the small backpack to the Osprey. For short walks, I wear the Osprey normally and sling the other bag over a single shoulder.

1 - https://www.osprey.com/us/en/product/farpoint-40-FARPNT40_52...

Small/medium, or medium/large?

My wife has the SM and I have the ML. Mine is slightly taller overall, but unless you set them side-by-side and have them packed full, you'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference. In theory, if mine is fully packed, it might not fit in a smaller overhead, but I've never actually had that happen - even full, they have enough "give" to jam into the bin.

Also, as mentioned elsewhere, the backpack is much more likely to be allowed onto a flight that is doing the "mandatory" gate check thing that is common on smaller regional jets/turbo-props.

Edit - FWIW, my last trip to Scotland, I had 2x shoes (running, hiking), clothing for 4 full days, 1x running clothes, a Patagonia Nanapuff jacket, baseball cap, belt, rain coat and rain pants, and toiletries. All fit with ease. In the second pack (an REI UL pack), I had 2x camera bodies, 3x lenses, iPad Mini, chargers/cables and spare batteries for all, binoculars, sunglasses, headphones, and passports/travel documents. Not sure I could have crammed it all into the Osprey - probably if I cut back to a single camera/lens and went to 3 days clothes (doing laundry either way, so 4 was overkill).

Can you stash/remove the hip belt while still comfortably using the shoulder straps? The omnipresence of hip belts is one of the reasons I don't care for carry-on backpacks (that and the fact that I'm normally wearing a small backpack with laptop, headphones, snacks, anyway). I find the hip belt very useful if I'm actually backpacking and otherwise really annoying.

no, but they lie close enough to flush against my back

Ok, thanks. I might take a look at some of Osprey's other bags. They seem to have similar options without the hip belt in their "duffel" section.

Their duffels are nice, but be sure to check the dimensions. They tend to be longer and narrower - while they'll probably squish into an overhead, they aren't optimized for that usage.

Thanks for the heads up. I’ll be careful about that.

Check out Timbuk2's Never Check Duffel and Never Check Overnight Briefcase. The duffel has backpack straps and looks like a good overhead bag. The briefcase looks like it will fit in most under-seat areas. If I did more business travel, I'd probably look closely at these, but right now, I'm only flying 2x/year for work and 2-3x for pleasure.

Appreciate the suggestions. Will definitely take a look. I don’t fly a ton but have been considering a proper backpack or duffel carry-on for a while.

Not on this particular bag, but I don't find it to be a problem. When I'm traveling in Europe, I'm often walking enough to want it (train station to hotel, etc). My wife always uses the hip strap - when the bag is full, it's not light.

This bag is really intended to be a true do-it-all pack. I've seen other brands with removable straps, but I've found those tend to be very minimal straps and not all the useful. I have other lightweight packs without waist belts.

    > why everyone has these roller carry-ons[?]

Because backpacks duffel-bags easily get heavy and uncomfortable.

They're especially miserable in hot weather. Also all the straps, do-daads, pockets and zippers get annoying.

The optimal thing is a hardshell roll-on with 4 wheels that stands up by itself. A smallish one is very good for overhead, but if you have to check it, no problem.

Bags designed specifically for carry-on use[1] don't have most of those problems. Comfortable shoulder and hip straps. Straps that zip away when needed. Removable cross-body (duffle style) strap. No bulky external pockets to snag on things. And unlike some of the larger "carry-on" rollers, it fits in the overhead on all airplanes, even the smaller turbo-props.

1 - https://www.osprey.com/us/en/product/farpoint-40-FARPNT40_52...

Also, hard shell bags are less likely to pick up bed bugs than soft cloth bags.

>I don't even get why everyone has these roller carry-ons.

They over-pack, can’t carry that weight, and don’t have a checked luggage strategy.

Sometimes you just can’t check or slim down, but a lot of people don’t really try.

One big reason is that they are clearly labeled as being legal carry on size. No one wants to pack a duffel then pull out a tape measure.

Because roller carry ons don’t make your shoulder tired, especially when waiting in the lines. And my roller is probably smaller than most people’s backpack.

This Tumi Voyageur 4 wheeled carry-on bag fits even in the regional jump jet bins, and under the seat of full size planes:

16” x 14” x 7.5” = https://www.tumi.com/p/osona-compact-carry-on-01100001077/

I often business travel 6 full business days with this bag, including a sport coat, dress shirts, etc., in fact I’m heading to CNCF with it right now. (Have leisure traveled 3 weeks with it.)

It is the smallest sensible 4-wheel roller I’ve found, but I’m always on the lookout for others. This bag though, I’ve never once been asked to check.

Tumi also has slightly larger options, but they won’t fit under the seat or in the regional jet bins:

16” x 16” x 8.5” = https://www.amazon.com/TUMI-Carry-Wheeled-Briefcase-Computer...

15” x 17” x 8” = https://www.tumi.com/p/compact-4-wheeled-brief-01171781041/

Your airmiles may vary...

i am praying the duffel secret doesn't get out, because it'll lead to a crackdown.

my "carry on" sized duffel is verifiably 3-5 inches larger than the maximum allowed dimensions, but i bring it on without a problem every time. i can't stand the idea of dragging some big and clunky thing -- which will surely break at the wheels eventually -- when i can just sling my bag and go.

I travel with a rectangular soft-walled carry-on backpack that's built to the maximum allowed dimensions.

More than once, I've been near the end of the boarding line, where they stop people from getting on the plane with their full-sized carry-ons because there's not enough room (which happens more and more frequently now). Every time, the backpack goes right through.

My secret is a soft roller to IATA size, but with a zip system that lets you expand the interior by 1-2 inches. If I'm flying for leisure in economy and they're checking luggage in bins, I'll pull out some clothes and wear them to pass the gate, then stop just after and cram them back in. Silly, but that's the game :(

I occasionally travel with a Pelican Air 1535, which is carry-on compatible, with my camera gear (about $5-15,000 depending on what I'm doing).

I've heard of people suggesting one of two methods of handling forced check-ins:

1) I use an app called MyGearVault that shows the value of the kit (also offers insurance). Checked bags are only insured to a maximum of 3,500. You can extend this to 5,000 for $50, but no more. "I do not want to check my bag because it is not covered by your insurance".

2) carry $50/$100 - if asked to check your bag, look behind you. "Hey, is someone willing to check their bag in place of me, here's some incentive".

I've never personally tried other method, but I've heard people claim success with either.

If you haven't stuffed the bag so it's exceeding the dimensions, why on earth wouldn't it be allowed? It's not a check of the potential size, it's a check of how much space is it actually taking up.

Because you're flying on an airline like Ryanair that uses extortionate extra fees as a profit centre, and you fear they'll charge you such a fee.

I have literally stuffed my duffel bag into the measuring box to prove that it fit. Clothes compress.

The causality is backwards. Larger hardcase roll-ons followed from checked luggage being a paid extra, not the other way around.

The first time I flew in the US I thought there was something wrong with my flight. It took 45 minutes to board and leave! But then it happened again. And again. And again. And slowly it dawned on me that this is just what folks here consider normal. Now we've gone from "you pay extra so you can board last" to "you pay extra so you can board first". It's nuts.

Well, the actual game is "you pay a bit extra to board first" or "you pay a lot extra to board last". If you're in business or first (on a plane big enough to have properly separated cabins of course), the big advantage of the upper cabin classes is that you have your own luggage bin

> "you pay a lot extra to board last"

In my experience, the first- and business- class folks always take advantage of their ability to board first, because sitting in first class on the tarmac is more comfortable than sitting in the airport terminal.

I think it depends on the layout of the terminal. If the lounge is not too far from the gate, it's more comfortable to just roll up last minute

Doesn't much matter on intra European flights.

There is usually no first and the difference between business and cattle class is a guaranteed free middle seat and better catering served on real glassware.

Seats are (except for slightly more legroom, which, alas, is the case until the exit rows) exactly the same.

Nah, go straight from the lounge to the aircraft, waiting until they come get you. Some lounges let you board directly, but even when you can’t you can get up your leisure and cut the queue.

If you have to wait in the regular terminal I agree: board first

I'm also a bit stumped.

Herearound a medium sized plane (A320, for example) takes 20 minutes to fill and there are no 8 (or some other ridiculous amount) of bording groups.

There are the high value passengers (business, gold status & above, family with kids), which present their bording passes to a real person and after that the automated gates open for us unwashed masses.

I think the cost in time and administrative overhead has a lot to answer for the length of the bording process in the US.

45 minutes for a non wide-body seems, well, a smidgeon excessive.

If the airlines were smart, they'd consider doing away with the overhead bins altogether. Those bins create a tragedy of the commons.

Bring a small backpack to be put under your seat that can carry your passport, laptop, headphones, a book to read, etc., or nothing at all. Check the rest. If the airlines do away with the overhead bins, then the first checked bag should be free. If it takes too long to get the bags on a carousel one-by-one, consider taking a leaf from the shipping industry and figure out some kind of containerization system for passenger aircraft whereby suitcases are loaded into containers before the aircraft gets to the gate, and the containers are unloaded at the destination.

Caveat: I'm not a business traveler. But, if you travel for business so often that you have status, then your checked bags are priority-marked and they're the first ones on the carousel anyway. As a guy who most often travels internationally and thus gets a free checked bag, even without status I never seem to need to wait more than 5-10 minutes for my bag, even on international flights where most travelers are checking bags.

Since they started charging for checked bags, now everyone tries to carry on as much as they can which results in slow boarding and getting off.

They should be charging for overhead bin use and make checked bags be free (along with small bags under the seat in front of you). This way most people would go back to checking bags and only the business people or people willing to pay would carry-on.

With planes being so overbooked these days I often carry my bag through security (which slows that down!) but then gate check it for free (so the airline is now losing the revenue).

> They should be charging for overhead bin use

Several airlines (and some of the lowest cost tickets for bigger airlines) do charge for this. But of course they don't make checked bags free.

The compromise position is probably to only have overhead bin space in premium cabins, then the price of overhead bin space is folded into the premium ticket.

Good point that carry-on bags probably also slows down security, and the amount that it slows security down is probably not negligible. Without carry-on suitcases, you could probably completely do away with the X-ray machines (hand-check people's purses and backpacks), which are (anecdotally) probably the biggest bottleneck at airport security.

Really? For me it's getting halfway undressed (no jacket, belt off, shoes on the conveyor, empty your pockets) that takes the most time.

Get TSA Precheck and that nonsense goes away. Only heavy jackets need to come off.

Overhead luggage provides relatively high space efficiency in space that can't really be used for much else. I'm also not sold that idealized deplaning with overhead luggage would be any slower than deplaning with idealized bag retrieval.

My gripe is that there ought to be an assigned overhead compartment for every individual seat. I get really annoyed when there's not enough room for my carry-on and it becomes my problem. It should be the airline's problem.

As a European all the complaints In this thread sound completely foreign. Whenever I fly, the stewards just help those who can’t find space at their seat with their bags. It’s never an issue.

* Captive market of people sitting in the airplane shopping mall for hours.

* Extra charges for everything.

Compare airplane boarding with simply boarding a train in Switzerland / Europe: You get on the train. If you miss the train, you get on the next one. Air travel was like this a long time ago, and still is for short-haul flights, and short-haul fleets are going all electric.

I think fast electric rail is here [in Europe and China/Japan/Korea] and is the future. Hopefully flying will be reduced, but for now, airplane boarding is ridiculous.

> short-haul fleets are going all electric.

There is literally not a single passenger service nor airline sized electric airplane in the world. “are going” is significantly premature at a minimum.

I am talking about short-haul flights where boarding is almost as easy as getting on the train.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/10/scotlands-orkney...

https://www.harbourair.com/harbour-air-and-magnix-partner-to...

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180814-norways-plan-for-a-...

In round numbers, how many of those ultra-short-haul passenger flights are flying electric today? I think the answer is a perfectly round number.

Southwest seems to board fairly quickly with unassigned seating.

But my favorite experience has been when they occasionally open both the front and rear doors for fast exiting.

CGP Grey did a video about this

https://youtu.be/oAHbLRjF0vo

This is why the assumption that market forces and competition will be favorable to consumers is a sham. There is no counter to shameless greed which is now directly impacting consumers who are actually paying more than earlier but on a piecemeal basis.

Still waiting for an airline to go 100% overhead bin free; something I think Southwest should try on an experimental route. Backing this up with free bags and adding an SLA for bag-to-claim (10m, depending on the airport) to give people predictability.

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