We do have our baggage but sometimes that’s what makes the trip so interesting, which is why we won’t get fined for excess luggage.
The perennial problem of fines at the gate has been ramped up.
With revelations over EasyJet putting ground staff on commission.
For fining customers in the line for breaking the weight limit on their carry-on luggage.
Portable essentials
First things first the best answer to the EasyJetstapo (now I’ve done it) is to not give them the chance to fine you.
The £48 fee charged for oversized bags from which the staff get £1.20 each piece.
Now drilling down, easyJet’s free allowance is a generous 45x36x20cm which you must be able to put under your seat.
And that poses this question… why should that not be enough for your portable essentials?
Because isn’t everything available to be bought at whichever destination you and your family are headed?
The rulebreakers
And the stress and cost of paying a fine is not restricted to those who don’t follow the rules.
As we all know from being held up at the gate.
When a traveller argues the toss with the ground crew over paying.
Which incidentally they always do as the alternative of having your boarding pass blocked sharpens the mind.
The follow-up
That lost time and further delays when passengers clog up the airplane aisles trying to cram in bags to overload lockers which you never get back.
As I found out to my cost on my recent linked flight with Aer Lingus from Edinburgh through Dublin to Chicago.
With our already delayed flight disrupted further because of a couple’s intransigence.
Yes, we do all have our baggage.
And credit here to the flight crew, who remained firm and fair.
Reminding everyone that the sooner bags were put in lockers the quicker we’d get there.
Hotfooting it to the gate
Now as a half-full sort I looked back on my experience with relief.
That I made my transatlantic flight at a, albeit with ten minutes to spare.
And pre-clearance completed, a great advantage of flying out of Dublin Airport.
But my luggage did not.
Understandable because humans on legs can get to the gate and on the plane quicker than luggage on wheels.
Good to go
Of course, every action has a reaction.
And so when I got to Chicago O’Hare Airport I did so without my suitcase.
Which turned up at my Palmer House a Hilton Hotel a full three full days later a day before I was due to leave.
Of course, looking back the support desk at the carousel were very helpful.
In helping me fill out the form and keep my reference number.
While I also got to know the bell hops at the hotel very well.
From checking constantly if my yellow suitcase had arrived.
And allowing me to use their phone to check of the luggage’s status.
While there was also a very accommodating mobile phone assistant who helped me top up my credit when that ran out.
As well as Ivan, my man on the inside at Aer Lingus, who smoothed the process and reunited suitcase with Scotsman.
Aye, we do have our baggage.
And it would help if we all considered each other and brought the right-sized bags to the gate.
