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Setting Passengers Straight
Ask Chris · March 8, 2000

Q: I am a flight attendant for a major airline. To the surprise of many people, the flight attendants and pilots are not paid for boarding flights. That means that all of the work we do on the ground (drinks, coats, seat discrepancies, excess baggage, pre-flight checks, etc., etc.) is all done while off the clock.

Currently, our flight attendants are fighting to get this changed. However, at this time no other major carrier pays for work on the ground, just flight time.

Most airlines will not enforce the two-bag limit, or one person brings on two of the biggest pieces of luggage you can imagine. On our airline if you are in first class or business class you are allowed three pieces. There are 14 seats in first class on a 757 and 7 overhead bins. Do the math - 14 seats times three pieces of luggage equals 42 pieces of luggage for seven bins.

Most people will not put a bag under their seat because they want the leg room. Our airline is currently reconfiguring the overhead bin on our wide body fleet, but the smaller planes will stay as they are. Hour after hour I am yelled at over the overhead bin space - all while off the clock. Isn't it time passengers know how the system works?

-- T. Anderson

A: No question about it. Carry-on luggage is one of those perennial issues that ticks passengers - and flight attendants - off. From a traveler's perspective, the reasons from hauling everything on board are relatively simple. Statistically speaking, at least one passenger on every flight loses his or her luggage. The airlines believe that's an acceptable figure. After all, they're transporting people, not cargo. Carriers could track the luggage closer, much like Federal Express or United Parcel Service do, but such as system has been deemed too costly.

Another problem is the way in which luggage is treated by handlers. I discussed this issue in a previous column. Making matters worse is that when airlines destroy your property, the remedies are often less than adequate.

Airline employees are equally upset. I've written about how flight attendants often injure themselves when they try to help passengers with their luggage. Your revelation that the clock isn't even running while they're spraining their back and getting yelled at is even more disturbing.

So who's responsible?

Crewmembers want to blame passengers. And travelers seem to be blaming flight attendants. But in this case, I believe the anger is misdirected. I think both parties have a common adversary - the airline itself.

First, with carrier's profits at respectable levels, it's difficult to justify not paying flight attendants for pre-boarding. Likewise, it's hard to make a case for not investing in the kind of infrastructure that will ensure every bag reaches its destination on time. The only reason this hasn't happened is that the CEOs calling the shots would rather use the money they save to make their earnings goals and take home a bigger bonus check. In other words, they're greedy.

Now greed, to paraphrase Wall Street's fictional villain Gordon Gecko, can be good. Money offers an incentive to work harder. But there's a downside to our free market system. In pure, unregulated capitalism, there is little room for the kind of compassion that gives line employees making $30,000 a year a small raise, or in building a system that ensures luggage won't get lost. And the airlines are deregulated, capitalistic monopolies.

On a wider level, the carry-on crisis is evidence of our government's failings to contain the airline industry. It is a testament to the success of the powerful airline lobby and a message to passengers and crewmembers alike that reregulation may be the only solution.

Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator and author of A Bridge to Nowhere: A Year in the Florida Keys. All e-mailed questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion. Ask Chris appears weekly on this site.