Reply #120: You're assuming there will still be carry-ons [View All]

[Tansy_Gold]

Travelers who want to take their own shampoos, etc., may put them in their luggage. They just can't bring anything liquid on the plane with them. In fact, from what I'm seeing, they can't bring hardly ANYTHING on the plane with them.

No carry-on luggage
No drinks
No food
No make-up (which can be made with glycerin which can be extracted to make bombs???)
No lotions, soaps, shampoos
No electronic devices, including laptops, MP3 players, cell phones.
No reading material (????)

Only cash, tickets, ID papers, etc., that would normally fit ina wallet and/or picket, meaning no purses, folks. All items must be carried in a clear plastic bag.

All it's going to take is a few SNAFUs to make air travel a total and ongoing nightmare. Use your imagination ----

1. A flight from JFK to LAX with a stop at O'Hare arrives late, too late for some passengers to catch a connecting flight to Minneapolis. Their cell phones are in their checked luggage. There are insufficient public phones for passengers to make arrangements. You think there aren't going to be some angry and frustrated folks, including hte airport and airline personnel who have to deal with them?

2. One piece of lost luggage that monumentally ruins a business trip or a family vacation. Many people -- as we all know -- keep the essentials in that carry-on, so that if another piece of luggage is lost, at least the trip isn't a disaster while the missing suitcase is located. (This happened to me on a trip to Hawaii several years ago. Thank goodness for those carry-ons!)

3. Claims for stolen items.

4. Complaints from the business community when their workers (other than the corporate-jet-flying CEOs) can't get any work done during that four-hour flight to and from wherever. And then the higher billing for time when consultants lose that time, too. "Yes, sir, I billed you for twenty hours, even though I only spent twelve hours on the job. The other eight was travel time during which I couldn't do a damn thing. If I had had those eight hours to do some work, I would only have needed to bill you for four hours. Oh, well, we're safer, aren't we? Pay up." And when government laptops start disappearing from checked baggage. . . . . . . . . . . . .

5. The effects of nervous, frightened, uncomfortable passengers on the flight crew and on other passengers. A crying baby who can't be consoled with Cheerios or a toy. A bored woman who talks incessantly to her seatmates because she has no book to read. A disgruntled teen-ager who has to stare at a stupid movie rather than relax with her iPod.

When -- indeed, if --- people stop flying because of this bullshit, the airlines may put some pressure. Until they doo, nothing is likely to happen.

I'm heading to Chicago in a few weeks for a class reunion and to visit my family. If I hadn't already bought the tickets, I'd have driven instead, and yeah, it's a 24-hour drive. I won't fly again until this absurd nonsense stops. I can't take drops for my eyes, but only 10% of the checked baggage is screened? ARE THEY CRAZY??????????????

Never mind, don't answer that. Of course they're crazy.



I can't afford to have things stolen out of my checked luggage. That's why I've always taken valuables -- mostly jewelery -- with me. I've had luggage lost -- that's why I carry essentials in my carry-on. So I'll be flying blind this trip -- I can't wear glasses and can't risk wearing contacts with no solution, so if you see a funky old lady wandering around O'Hare, squinting to read the signs, it might be me looking for the baggage claim so I can unpack my eyes. Help her out, okay?


Tansy Gold, writing this before she's put her eyes in for the day and not sure about any typos. . . . . . .