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Perhaps this is different on long haul widebody flights - but one of the secrets of ryanair/easyjet's success is their ability to get so few checked in bags onb

Perhaps this is different on long haul widebody flights - but one of the secrets of ryanair/easyjet's success is their ability to get so few checked in bags onboard. I've sometimes seen as few as maybe 5-10 bags going in the hold. Now that means there's a lot of space going free in the cargo hold, but it means you can turn the flights round ridiculously quickly. Which means you can do many more segments per day and you don't have the plane sitting their deprecating. edit: it's also great for a passenger as it can take up to an hour in big airports to get the bags onto the belts. i hate checking in bags now and curse myself every time I do.

slapshot 11y ago
Southwest has the opposite thesis: it believes that baggage handlers are faster at loading bags under the plane than passengers would be trying to stuff those bags overhead. At least in the US, Southwest is known (notorious) for the having the fastest ground turns of 737s. They started at 10 minutes [1] and have moved to a leisurely 25 minutes, against a US average of 90 minutes. This seems to make a lot of sense to me -- baggage handlers are pretty fast and can move bags much faster than passengers can board a plane. Moving luggage handling below the plane allows two parallel tasks to execute: one stream is focused on passengers finding seats and the other is focused on bags being loaded. Otherwise you have serial execution of passengers trying to upload bags to the bins before the next passenger can do anything. [1] http://www.cnbc.com/id/43768488 http://www.cnbc.com/id/43768488
- pavel_lishin 11y ago
  But don't most people bring a carry on on board anyway?
  - cozzyd 11y ago
    The issue is that on other airlines that charge baggage fees, everyone brings a big roller bag on board. There isn't enough room for everyone's bag, so this leads to a massive slowdown as people try to find a spot, flight attendant's trying to convince people to put stuff that fits under seats under the seat, etc.
- martinald 11y ago
  But you've got 100+ people trying putting their bag overhead and usually only 1 or 2 people physically in a 737 loading baggage (because it's so small). Plus surely the airport is going to charge more to handle 100+ checked bags vs 5? And if there is a big problem with the baggage system and none of the baggage arrives, you've got a much bigger problem if everyone's baggage is checked vs only a handful of items... Interesting.

slapshot 11y ago

Southwest has the opposite thesis: it believes that baggage handlers are faster at loading bags under the plane than passengers would be trying to stuff those bags overhead. At least in the US, Southwest is known (notorious) for the having the fastest ground turns of 737s. They started at 10 minutes [1] and have moved to a leisurely 25 minutes, against a US average of 90 minutes. This seems to make a lot of sense to me -- baggage handlers are pretty fast and can move bags much faster than passengers can board a plane. Moving luggage handling below the plane allows two parallel tasks to execute: one stream is focused on passengers finding seats and the other is focused on bags being loaded. Otherwise you have serial execution of passengers trying to upload bags to the bins before the next passenger can do anything. [1] http://www.cnbc.com/id/43768488 http://www.cnbc.com/id/43768488

pavel_lishin 11y ago
But don't most people bring a carry on on board anyway?
- cozzyd 11y ago
  The issue is that on other airlines that charge baggage fees, everyone brings a big roller bag on board. There isn't enough room for everyone's bag, so this leads to a massive slowdown as people try to find a spot, flight attendant's trying to convince people to put stuff that fits under seats under the seat, etc.
martinald 11y ago
But you've got 100+ people trying putting their bag overhead and usually only 1 or 2 people physically in a 737 loading baggage (because it's so small). Plus surely the airport is going to charge more to handle 100+ checked bags vs 5? And if there is a big problem with the baggage system and none of the baggage arrives, you've got a much bigger problem if everyone's baggage is checked vs only a handful of items... Interesting.