Qantas to Introduce Group Boarding and Bag Tracking

[Seat0B]

Exactly! It's not like boarding earlier will get you to your final destination quicker.

No but it will get you overhead locker space which is a big issue in Y and even sometimes in J cabins on domestic flights.

 

[Lynda2475]

No but it will get you overhead locker space which is a big issue in Y and even sometimes in J cabins on domestic flights.

I agree, however if carry-on size and weight limits were better enforced it would be less of a concern.

 

[malwcal]

I agree, however if carry-on size and weight limits were better enforced it would be less of a concern.

Particularly if people were to only put one bag in the locker.

 

[Seat0B]

I agree, however if carry-on size and weight limits were better enforced it would be less of a concern.

You are so right. But given that these are not reliably enforced, I control what I can - which is my preference to board early so I do get locker space.

 

[andytheturtle]

Exactly! It's not like boarding earlier will get you to your final destination quicker.

As someone who usually sits in Y, I’m torn between accessing the precious overhead locker earlier, and settling in the less-than-comfortable seat any earlier than that is needed.

But looking over at those in J or F, I can see why they won’t mind getting onboard sooner

 

[Captain Halliday]

I suspect the allowance itself is part of the problem.

I had reason to check the limits yesterday and was surprised to find there are combinations which permit two carry on bags plus a handbag or laptop.

For domestic (ex. Dash-8), this page says you can take one carry on bag within the relevant weight and dimensions… but goes on to give a second option allowing two bags.



It then gives the one bag + one garment bag combo, before listing the small personal item (handbag/laptop bag) allowance as applying to all the combinations above.



If even half the pax took two small roller cases, plus a handbag or laptop bag, I seriously doubt it would all fit.

This might not be popular, but perhaps the allowance is simply too much for the available space?

 

[Rnwillia]

I don’t understand all the fuss about boarding early? My wife and I always hang back and like to be last to board. We also like to have next to no carry on luggage and we put almost everything in our stowed cases.

 

[Danger]

I don’t understand all the fuss about boarding early? My wife and I always hang back and like to be last to board. We also like to have next to no carry on luggage and we put almost everything in our stowed cases.

If you read the priority boarding thread, you will see it's not so much about boarding early, but Qantas consistently failing to deliver what has long been a published benefit.

 

[Lynda2475]

This might not be popular, but perhaps the allowance is simply too much for the available space?

However that second smaller piece of baggage must go under your seat (see below)


Too many people think they can put 2 bags plus a coat/jacket in the overhead plus have a personal item under the seat in front. One item up top the rest under the seat in front, if enforced and people lost leg space they might reconsider.

 

[malwcal]

Too many people think they can put 2 bags plus a coat/jacket in the overhead plus have a personal item under the seat in front. One item up top the rest under the seat in front, if enforced and people lost leg space they might reconsider.

Agreed.

Sure, if the plane is fully boarded and there is still room up top feel free to put your second bag up there. But in the first instance put the smaller one under the seat in front of you.

 

[Flashback]

This is pretty much describes me. I value priority boarding for access to overhead bin space and I value carry on due to lengthy waits to get bags at the carousel.

If bags were consistently fast to the carousel then I wouldn’t be compelled to use carry on as much as I do.

Why have we come so far in all sorts of technology but no one has come up with an effective way to speed up checked baggage, both checking in and returning it?

The only mechanisms we have come up with in this area are tighter rules and more fees. And maybe faster luggage belts and bag scanning. Some innovation...

Give Air Asia a try - 2/2 flights on the trip I'm just wrapping up now had bags out as I walked through passport control (which I was also straight through). Asian efficiency at its finest!

 

[VHOEJ]

The issue is if everyone brings on thier 'allowance', even if bags go under the seat, there is not enough space. Maybe on the Boeing Sky Interior aircraft you have a better change.

Same issue in the US - the carry on allowances exceed the actual limited space in the overhead lockers.

 

[anat0l]

The issue is if everyone brings on thier 'allowance', even if bags go under the seat, there is not enough space. Maybe on the Boeing Sky Interior aircraft you have a better change.

Same issue in the US - the carry on allowances exceed the actual limited space in the overhead lockers.

This picture comes from this article: United says that '100%' of customers will be able to bring carry-on bags as part of its massive fleet upgrades

The article is about 2 years old. Other similar pictures can be found and some are much older (well, after all, Sky Interior has been around for a while).

At one bin per two rows and one on both sides, theoretically everyone should be able to bring a regulation roller and put it in the overhead bin.

It never happens that way due to a multitude of reasons, including:

• Rollers that exceed the size limits, including bulging, "fat" ones
• People don't know how to stack
• Some bring more than one roller (how they get away with it....)
• Irregular bags like shopping, a box of doughnuts, camera equipment that can't be checked in, and all sorts of soft bags that people don't want to place under the seat in front of them, notwithstanding those seated at bulkheads or exit rows
• Business Class would be slightly underloaded, but that's usually balanced by a nook for the safety equipment and possibly crew bags (then the rest is for Economy overflow)

Admittedly, it's unlikely that a 100% loaded plane would have every single passenger carrying a roller, but surely that had to be considered in the cabin design (even if it seems unrealistic to start with, given the overall dimensions of the cabin).

 

[Lynda2475]

On recent US flights the FAs were flipping bags onto their side if people had loaded incorrectly to maximise available space. If your non roller carry-on can't fit in the same or less space than the regulation size roller then it should be checked in.

The newer bigger bins are great, and if each slot was labelled/marked with tape and allocated to a specific seat the abusers would be found out (and hopefully charged to check their excess).

 

[anat0l]

if each slot was labelled/marked with tape and allocated to a specific seat the abusers would be found out (and hopefully charged to check their excess).

Then you would have this BS argument involving the FA every time when someone has a bag in your slot. The argument would proceed and if you're lucky you'll get your spot and the offender might get whatever is coming to them (or they may get lucky as the FAs check the manifest for a slot that won't be taken because there is no pax allocated to said seat). Either way, a waste of time for all involved.

Then you'd have some that would shrug and just place their bag in any empty slot rather than disturb the errant one in their slot. If that causes a chain reaction, then we have another huge waste of time as we track down who caused the whole mess first.

I guess we're back to air travel would be so much easier if everyone could be reasonable and be trusted to do the right thing.

 

[Lynda2475]

Im at BNE about to board, signage up for group boarding but no group number on the app BP, going to assume as Platinum I'm in Group 1.

** edited to add they just called priority boarding for J, P1, WP and SG all at once. So group seems to mean nothing.

 

[SeatBackForward]

Then you would have this BS argument involving the FA every time when someone has a bag in your slot. The argument would proceed and if you're lucky you'll get your spot and the offender might get whatever is coming to them (or they may get lucky as the FAs check the manifest for a slot that won't be taken because there is no pax allocated to said seat). Either way, a waste of time for all involved.

Then you'd have some that would shrug and just place their bag in any empty slot rather than disturb the errant one in their slot. If that causes a chain reaction, then we have another huge waste of time as we track down who caused the whole mess first.

I guess we're back to air travel would be so much easier if everyone could be reasonable and be trusted to do the right thing.

Aren't you contradicting things a bit? Trusting people to do the right thing is how this mess ends up. *if* the solution of allocating spaces could work, how is that any less reliant on trust?

 

[anat0l]

Aren't you contradicting things a bit? Trusting people to do the right thing is how this mess ends up. *if* the solution of allocating spaces could work, how is that any less reliant on trust?

We would have a lot less rules and arguments if all could be trusted to do the right thing by one another.

People are unreasonable and selfish so we need rules and systems (possibly with the threat of the law) to make the travel experience at base workable and possibly pleasant.

Allocating spaces with tape does rely on trust that people will follow it (just as a law may exist but you still have to trust people not to break it), but I guess I should have made it clear that I'm not sure to what degree it would make a difference over the status quo (no allocations, but everyone is supposed to implicitly understand that their bags should go above their row or as close to it as possible, and only one bag up there). I suppose, on reflection, the actual printing of which bag for which seat is an inexpensive exercise that it would be worth a try.

 

[SeatBackForward]

printing of which bag for which seat is an inexpensive exercise that it would be worth a try

Exactly, it's inexpensive, leaves no room for ambiguity and I think if an airline did this, it would at least seem like a genuine effort at resolving this problem, rather than the token effort made normally.

The issue with the above, as alluded to multiple times in this thread, is that just as airlines overbook, they also don't ACTUALLY have that space onboard their aircraft. So how they reasonably allocate space is up for grabs.

Here's an idea - middle seats are guaranteed an allocated space! there's an incentive/reward for taking the least desirable space in a row?

 

[Lynda2475]

If the fit the larger bins like in the USA there is absolutely enough room for every seat to have room for 1 correct size bag.