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Winter 1999 Webzine

In this issue: Baglady Boarding Pass | Monthly Travelite Tip| Overseas Carry-On Travails | Tech Review | Web Site Review

Overseas Carry-On Travails

by Liz Kane (Honolulu, Hawaii, US)

Liz recently went on a 17-day trip to Egypt. She shares with us her experiences with the airline crew in her attempts to take her a carry-on on board. --Ed.

What I took: An 18-inch wheeled carry-on (well within limits even for a small plane, but easily overstuffed so as to make it a tight fit in the narrow part of the airline box) and my laptop bag, which doubled as a purse. Northwest/KLM's web page said that we were allowed one piece of carry on luggage, and that a purse, camera bag, briefcase, or laptop bag did not count, and the policy was same both at LAX and at Amsterdam. In LAX, because it was an overseas flight, and in Am, but it was not in the US.

The culprit that made my carry-on fat was my buckwheat back pillow, which is about four inches in diameter and a foot long. They wouldn't have given me a hard time if I'd hand-carried it, I know, but it was easier to put it in the bag until I got on the plane.

The laptop bag is a modified canvas Lands' End briefcase--it looks like their regular ones but it has an extra compartment for the laptop. It's the same size as my hard-sided Samsonite briefcase I use to travel to court on short-hop flights.

Honolulu, at the start: Our group convened at the airport, and through maneuvering the line, was able to check in together. The person told us that she couldn't check my friends' bags in all the way to Cairo. We'd have to pick them up in Amsterdam and recheck them there.

On the flight to Los Angeles: And we were off. I can't sleep on airplanes. The movie was "October Sky." I wasn't about to pay 5 dollars to see it again. My eyes felt like sandpaper when we got to L.A. My back was holding up. So far, so good.

Los Angeles: Airport shuttle to the Marriott. Check in, breakfast. Try to nap. My companions succeeded. I finally gave up and took a shower and changed clothes for the next leg.

Los Angeles International Airport: Off to the airport for the long leg. We got to the airport departure terminal, and the lines were tremendously long with people checking in. My friend Karen and I tried to confirm that we could go straight to the gate, and the airline employee told us we had to wait in that line to find out the answer. We headed for the gate.

When we got there, Karen asked the man behind the desk, sweetly, if this was where we checked in. "I'm not open yet," he snapped. "No," I said. I just want to know if this is where we check in. "I told you before, I'm not open yet." We waited. A line formed behind us. Finally, he looked up and accepted our presence. Boarding passes all the way to Cairo.

Still with time to kill, we checked out the Duty Free shop. Overpriced. Stuff cost more than at Liberty House (department store in Hawaii) for the same items.

Back at the gate, pandemonium ruled. For some reason, hundreds of people were jammed around the entrance gate. There was a woman at the gate yelling into the microphone, telling people to stand back. They announced that they'd be measuring all hand luggage, and that we'd only be permitted one piece each.

There were two people standing on either side of the gate entry, who took each person's carry-on, checked it in the box, and made sure it fit before they let people on the plane. What I did there was to put the laptop bag over my shoulder until I was past the checkpoint, and then put it back on the wheeled carry-on for transport onto the plane.

Then they started boarding. From the back of the plane, naturally. People still wouldn't stand back and let others board. We were scheduled to sit at the back of the plane, in the vicinity of the aft lavatory. Row 59 out of 69. Somehow we made our way through the throng to the gate. I had the laptop bag over my shoulder with my purse inside. They did inspect my carryon, and it was almost too fat. They had to squeeze it to make it fit in the little box.

Back at the gate, pandemonium ruled. For some reason, hundreds of people were jammed around the entrance gate. There was a woman at the gate yelling into the microphone, telling people to stand back. They announced that they'd be measuring all hand luggage, and that we'd only be permitted one piece each.

Back at the gate, the plane was delayed. They finally started announcing that they were getting ready. This time, again, they were going to be absolutely strict about carryons. Two pieces, no way. Anything more than ten kilos (24.5 pounds), no way. I decided to try to fit the laptop case inside the other one. Everything almost fit. But not quite. I put the laptop and all its pieces in the carryon, figuring I'd let them check the empty case if they gave me a hard time. They gave me a hard time. But they wanted to take the carryon with everything in it! With the laptop, it was too heavy. I told them no. I almost had a fight with the baggage guy at the gate, who didn't want to let me have my bag back to reorganize stuff.

I succeeded in getting it back, finally, by telling him my boarding pass was in there. He let me have it, and I again repacked everything. I kept the laptop bag with my back pillow and my pain pills, but let them have everything else.

And then I saw that the "one piece of luggage" rule was somewhat inconsistently enforced. Americans and Europeans seemed to be held to it. Briefcases and laptop bags and the like were all confiscated to be checked into the plane. Africans, however, could take on whatever they wanted. I was so angry I cried. Two nights without sleep might have had something to do with it.

Next stop, Europe, ten short hours away. Movie headsets distributed without charge. Shakespeare in Love, followed by Waking Ned Devine. A meal with wine. More wine. A codeine pill for my back. Managed to sleep mostly through Shakespeare. Breakfast.

Amsterdam: Finally, touched down in Amsterdam. Karen was in charge of arranging activities for L.A. , and my other friend Karyl had the job for Amsterdam. First, we found a transfer desk and asked if they could please get my friends' check-in luggage to Cairo. Sure, the young woman said. Would you like to pick it up yourself now, or have us do it? How fast could we jump at that suggestion? Just describe your luggage, and we'll take care of it. The Honolulu person just made a mistake, she assured us. Of course we could check it all the way through. New boarding passes, closer to the front of the plane.

We were back in civilization. L.A. was a foreign country, inhabited by rude and discourteous oafs.

After a day of short sight-seeing, it was back to the Amsterdam airport. At the gate, they also had two people, one stationary and one roaming around. They checked all pieces of luggage both in the sizer, and on a scale.

I got caught by the roaming guy, before I even got to the front of the line where they were checking stuff. He grabbed my carry-on, felt it, and said it was too heavy.

I blame myself for my problems. If I had done what I did in L.A., just put the laptop over my shoulder and brazened it through, it would probably have worked. The other women traveling with me didn't have any problem, and their purses weren't all that small. I let myself be intimidated, rather than being willing to argue with the guy about whether I was entitled to have my laptop bag count as a purse or not.

For the return trip, in Cairo when we checked in, the man said we were allowed only one piece of carry-on luggage. My friend Gloria asked if purses counted. He said no. In that airport, the carry-on luggage, including purses, had to have a tag that he dispensed, before you could get it on the plane. He gave us two tags apiece. I stood out of his line of vision with the laptop bag over my shoulder. The others made sure to refer to it as my purse while they were in earshot of the guy.

The lesson I learned on this trip was that the way they enforce the carry-on limit is to physically block your entrance onto the plane until they've checked the bag size.

Another thing about security, both in Amsterdam and throughout Egypt, that is different from here. There is a second security checkpoint with an x-ray machine and metal detector at the gate. Even though you go through one at the entrance to the gate area, you have to go through another one before you get on the plane. Since you have to put all your bags on a conveyor and go through the metal detector before getting on the plane, that's the place they check the carry-on bags for size and weight.

In addition to the flights on Northwest/KLM that I wrote about, I had four flights on Egypt Air--from Cairo to Aswan, from Aswan to Abu Simbel and back, and from Luxor to Cairo. There was also the train from Cairo to Alexandria, and the bus from Alexandria back to the Cairo airport. Each of those had its particular luggage idiosyncracies, but that's the sort of thing only travel junkies would care about--the picky details of how you get from place to place.

Liz (and her checked in carry-on) made it home safely to Honolulu, where she is now back enjoying her relaxing job as a bankruptcy lawyer (irony intended here, folks)

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