6 ms·

Author is implying that he only fears whatever time he needs to wait for checked bag. I find it ridiculous - air travel is already an all day long enterprise ev

by Yizahi 7y ago

Author is implying that he only fears whatever time he needs to wait for checked bag. I find it ridiculous - air travel is already an all day long enterprise even on short flights - get to the airport, then minimum 2 hours for all checks, then flight itself, then check on arrival (up to 1 hour), then baggage if any and then get out of the airport. Baggage wait time is usually a rounding error in all this. What is really important is that people usually carry fragile and expensive things in hand luggage and is forced to check it in there is a high probility of it breaking or theft. This is a real reason for fighting for overhead space. Also losing all your luggage (checked in and forced checked in) or even delaying it by few days is significantly more painful if only one item was lost/delayed, especially if it was a trip from home to another place (not reverse).

JOnAgain 7y ago
>> minimum 2 hours for all checks You don’t fly much.
namdnay 7y ago
And if you're travelling into a country with painful immigration processes (e.g. USA), the time spent waiting for your baggage can be the difference between a 15mn cue at immigration and a 2h cue at customs EDIT: the big queue is at customs not immigration
- dagw 7y ago
  At every airport I've flown into in the US baggage claim is after immigration.
  - namdnay 7y ago
    You're right, I was conflating immigration and customs
- muro 7y ago
  I think you get your baggage after immigration.
- Xixi 7y ago
  Traveling to U.S.A. is a pretty unique experience, depending on your visa/status. And I don't mean it in a good way... With my E-2 visa crossing immigration at JFK is anywhere between 20 minutes (very lucky) and 1 hour. To be fair it has improved massively, it used to be 2+ hours. In any case my checked baggage will be waiting for me, not the other way around. But check-in is far worse: nobody knows how to handle an E-2 visa. Last time I went to Japan it took 4 JAL employees 20 minutes to figure out which numbers to enter where on their system. Still two hours less than Air France that may or may not have someone to take care of passengers that cannot check in on their DIY terminals... Hence I try to avoid Air France when flying to US, even though otherwise I quite enjoy flying with them. But really, there's no reason why waiting for checked luggage should be a thing. I'm always thoroughly impressed when flying domestic Japanese flights: get off the plane, walk to the luggage pick-up area, pick up luggage. No waiting time: checked bags are already there. I don't even know how they do that. Aéroport de Paris should send a team or two over there and study hard...
  - mikelward 7y ago
    I used to fly semi-regularly on an E-3 visa. The online check-in and airport kiosks usually couldn't accept it, but the customer service staff never had a problem with it. Arriving in the US was a whole other matter. They often weren't familiar with the E-3 rules for things like whether the 2 years starts when the visa was issued or date of first arrival. They also wrote the wrong visa type one time, which would have affected my employment authorization. Had to guide them thru it a few times.
CPLX 7y ago
I’m assuming you don’t fly regularly for business. If you did you wouldn’t call it an “all day enterprise” as pretty often you’re flying and actually having the meetings on the same day. When you do fly constantly for short business trips the suggestion of adding checked bags to the mix becomes ridiculous. It adds time and unpredictability both before and after the flight, as check in time is more strict with a bag. Repeat the process a bunch of times and have the errant 40 minute wait for your bag on a delayed flight that landed at midnight, or have it lost (even once in 50 trips can be a “regular” occurance), or have your flight cancelled but see another flight you could jump on instead, and you’ll realize having checked bags is a massive liability for business traveling.
- namdnay 7y ago
  Indeed, but travelling business you usually aren't facing the same issues on bin space
  - cbzoiav 7y ago
    Expense policies are as often as not economy for short haul.
    - alistairSH 7y ago
      Do employers actually force employees to buy basic economy tickets? I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but so far, my employer doesn't allow those tickets - most of us have to fly "lowest reasonable fare", which generally means within 20% of the lowest normal economy fare for the route.
      - sokoloff 7y ago
        Not basic economy, but economy for short domestic is common. That still could mean boarding group 5 out of 6 or so for travelers with no airline status.
      - dagw 7y ago
        Have a friend who's company made him fly out on a Sunday afternoon (thus having to pay him both overtime and a per diem) and stay at a hotel (which the company obviously paid for), because there where only business class tickets left for the Monday morning flight and company had a strict "no business class" policy. The price difference between the two tickets was less than $100.
apacheCamel 7y ago
My good friend actually came to visit me recently and they "lost" her checked bag. I say "lost" here because they "knew" where it was, but the plane kept getting delayed. Apparently it ended up on a separate plane that happened to arrive at the same airport. They originally told us to wait at the airport until it arrived, assuring us it was only going to be another 30 minutes. We ended up leaving, without her bag, 2 hours later. They said they would call us when it arrived. No such luck. We went back to the airport in the morning and it had just shown up and nobody knew why they were holding it. I understand if they misplace the bag, but to string us along for almost a whole day waiting on a call from them that never came is really just a miserable experience.
- sokoloff 7y ago
  Tell the airline where you're staying and where they can deliver the bag. Ask them the policy on reimbursing the purchases that you'll need to make to get by in the meantime. I've had an airline drive our bags 50+ miles to deliver them, but they are not likely to open with that as their initial offer.
  - apacheCamel 7y ago
    Honestly, I will have to try this. I am a pretty passive person so my head usually goes to "just nod and say ok a bunch" during confrontations like this but the luggage experience had me pretty upset. Thank you for the advice!
  - DuskStar 7y ago
    I had a trip where one (of several) bags got diverted and ended up arriving a day late - Delta got it to us ~125 km away in time for the second day of skiing. I don't remember if they comped the ski gear we bought in the interim, though...
NikolaNovak 7y ago
It strongly depends on whether you're a "few times a year leisure traveller", or "multiple times a week business traveller". First few minutes of "Up in the air" will give you a good idea of how strongly business travellers optimize. At my peak when I was doing 75+ flights/year, I would leave home at 7am to be on the 8am flight - this included taxi, security, boarding, and 20 minute margin for unexpected issues. I pack light and tight into a backpack that goes underneath my seat, because the flights on Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal Canadian corridor are 80+% priority status, daily travellers, and they ferociously fight for overhead space. Put it a different way - a 20 minute annoyance once a year is, bad but meh. 20 minute annoyance twice a week for a year - that's FULL WORK WEEK lost.
- scarface74 7y ago
  I fly out of Atlanta (the world’s busiest airport). While it’s usually not that bad, I would never take a chance on arriving less than the recommended two hours.
  - NikolaNovak 7y ago
    It's two intersecting curves: - Risk, which is inversely related to early arrival - Wasteage, which is directly related to early arrival The slope of the curves is largely impacted by: - Personal risk tolerance; but also - Frequency of flying Personally: * When I fly for vacations, I am "arrive early and wait" type of person - typically 3 hrs or more. I have no problems being relaxed and reading at the airport :). * But when I fly weekly for work, I just can't _afford_ to be that early. The math is simple - 2hrs early times two flights a week times 45 weeks (assume few weeks of vacation or working remotely etc) is... 180 hours wasted at the airport. Holly crap, I just spent a month of work at the terminal! If I only arrive one hour before flight, I reduce that number by 90hrs. That's more than two work weeks saved - for how much additional risk have I taken? How many incidents will I incur? If I miss one out of every X flights due to reduced margin, am I still ahead? A lot of it is down to routine. I believe (but don't have math for this) that I have higher risk on my vacation trips, even with increased margin & time, as I don't have the routine down. Whereas on my weekly trips, 15 minutes is plenty. (I fly out of Pearson, which is about half the yearly throughput of Atlanta. Over 7 years, I have never missed a flight due to these margins. I did once miss a flight because I forgot my wallet - since then I have two wallets: one stays in the travel backpack, always; and one is in my pants. I like systems :)
cbzoiav 7y ago
As someone that flies short haul in europe fairly often by far the biggest factor for me is having to wait for my bag. Not only is it the entirely random amount of time it takes (from the luggage beating you there through to the best part of an hour) but it means I can't book an uber until after i've picked it up / anyone picking me up has gone over the N minutes free / I miss a train and have to wait 30 minutes for the next one. Time on the flight seated is not lost. I can work from a laptop, read, sleep etc. Many airports outside of peak you can comfortably arrive less than 30 mins before the flight (easy if there is reliable public transport, quiet roads, your company is paying or its a €30 flight so you don't care too much if you miss it and have to get the next one). Whereas the valuables problem is easily fixed. Phone in pocket and 14" laptop sleeve fits in the back of the seat or both in a much smaller bag.
- berbec 7y ago
  > its a €30 flight Oh my Europe!
odiroot 7y ago
I fly Berlin - Warsaw (my two "hometowns") quite regularly. Takes me 15-20 minutes to get to the airport, then around 10-20 minutes inside, thanks to the awesome Tegel airport. I usually leave my flat about an hour before the flight. Frequently end up with 10+ minutes buffer of idle waiting. Around 50 minutes later I land in Warsaw (another awesome international airport). Another 20-25 minutes later and I'm at my mother's house. All in all under 3 hours time. Just for reference the same route by car takes about 5h and by train around 7h. I know my example is very specific and understand it cannot apply to most of the flights but still.
eknkc 7y ago
I generally leave my home 1 hour before the flight then leave the landing airport immediately since I don't have checked in baggage. The entire endevour is around 1.5 hours + flight duration.
Roark66 7y ago
I fly Gdansk-London Luton, less frequently these days, but I used to do it every week. It was definitely not an all day enterprise. I even managed to get back on the same day few times. To get to the airport on time I need to leave home at 4am. Not exactly convenient, but doable. A bit over an hour to get to the airport, then I have about 45 min at the airport to get through security, eat breakfast, wait for my flight etc. 6am flight leaves, just under 2 hours later it lands at Luton, but there is a 1h time difference so it lands at 7am local time. Now the worst part of the whole journey, getting through UK customs - if I'm lucky it may take 10 minutes. Otherwise if lots of planes just landed there is a huge queue and an hour long wait. However, it is very rare that I would leave the destination airport later than 8am local time. Then there is a 10 min bus ride to the Luton Parkway train station. Fast trains to London leave every 10-15min. I'm usually in central London no later than 8:30-45. Just enough time to get a coffee before starting work at 9am.
rando444 7y ago
Things like this are definitely all in a person's head. Houston airport used to have lots of complaints from people about bag wait times. To resolve the problem they moved the arrival gates as far away from the baggage claim as possible, making people have to walk 12 times farther to get their bags. Complaints about waiting for checked bags dropped to near zero. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/opinion/sunday/why-waiting-in-line-is-torture.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/opinion/sunday/why-waitin...
- mLuby 7y ago
  That's brilliant. Dark, but brilliant. I've often thought, waiting at the baggage carousel, that I'd be willing to unload other peoples' bags just to get mine out faster. But really it's just because waiting is so terrible.
diminoten 7y ago
Even when I was flying out of ORD, I doubt I ever arrived more than 30 minutes before boarding started, and I was always early enough to grab a bite and chill for a bit. In DCA I tend to clock the "door to gate" time at 35-40 minutes, and that's from out in Bethesda. Nowadays I probably arrive 15 minutes before boarding to my local airport, which is tiny, so it's never a problem.

by Yizahi 7y ago

JOnAgain 7y ago

>> minimum 2 hours for all checks You don’t fly much.

namdnay 7y ago

And if you're travelling into a country with painful immigration processes (e.g. USA), the time spent waiting for your baggage can be the difference between a 15mn cue at immigration and a 2h cue at customs EDIT: the big queue is at customs not immigration

dagw 7y ago
At every airport I've flown into in the US baggage claim is after immigration.
- namdnay 7y ago
  You're right, I was conflating immigration and customs
muro 7y ago
I think you get your baggage after immigration.
Xixi 7y ago
Traveling to U.S.A. is a pretty unique experience, depending on your visa/status. And I don't mean it in a good way... With my E-2 visa crossing immigration at JFK is anywhere between 20 minutes (very lucky) and 1 hour. To be fair it has improved massively, it used to be 2+ hours. In any case my checked baggage will be waiting for me, not the other way around. But check-in is far worse: nobody knows how to handle an E-2 visa. Last time I went to Japan it took 4 JAL employees 20 minutes to figure out which numbers to enter where on their system. Still two hours less than Air France that may or may not have someone to take care of passengers that cannot check in on their DIY terminals... Hence I try to avoid Air France when flying to US, even though otherwise I quite enjoy flying with them. But really, there's no reason why waiting for checked luggage should be a thing. I'm always thoroughly impressed when flying domestic Japanese flights: get off the plane, walk to the luggage pick-up area, pick up luggage. No waiting time: checked bags are already there. I don't even know how they do that. Aéroport de Paris should send a team or two over there and study hard...
- mikelward 7y ago
  I used to fly semi-regularly on an E-3 visa. The online check-in and airport kiosks usually couldn't accept it, but the customer service staff never had a problem with it. Arriving in the US was a whole other matter. They often weren't familiar with the E-3 rules for things like whether the 2 years starts when the visa was issued or date of first arrival. They also wrote the wrong visa type one time, which would have affected my employment authorization. Had to guide them thru it a few times.

CPLX 7y ago

I’m assuming you don’t fly regularly for business. If you did you wouldn’t call it an “all day enterprise” as pretty often you’re flying and actually having the meetings on the same day. When you do fly constantly for short business trips the suggestion of adding checked bags to the mix becomes ridiculous. It adds time and unpredictability both before and after the flight, as check in time is more strict with a bag. Repeat the process a bunch of times and have the errant 40 minute wait for your bag on a delayed flight that landed at midnight, or have it lost (even once in 50 trips can be a “regular” occurance), or have your flight cancelled but see another flight you could jump on instead, and you’ll realize having checked bags is a massive liability for business traveling.

namdnay 7y ago
Indeed, but travelling business you usually aren't facing the same issues on bin space
- cbzoiav 7y ago
  Expense policies are as often as not economy for short haul.
  - alistairSH 7y ago
    Do employers actually force employees to buy basic economy tickets? I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but so far, my employer doesn't allow those tickets - most of us have to fly "lowest reasonable fare", which generally means within 20% of the lowest normal economy fare for the route.
    - sokoloff 7y ago
      Not basic economy, but economy for short domestic is common. That still could mean boarding group 5 out of 6 or so for travelers with no airline status.
    - dagw 7y ago
      Have a friend who's company made him fly out on a Sunday afternoon (thus having to pay him both overtime and a per diem) and stay at a hotel (which the company obviously paid for), because there where only business class tickets left for the Monday morning flight and company had a strict "no business class" policy. The price difference between the two tickets was less than $100.

apacheCamel 7y ago

My good friend actually came to visit me recently and they "lost" her checked bag. I say "lost" here because they "knew" where it was, but the plane kept getting delayed. Apparently it ended up on a separate plane that happened to arrive at the same airport. They originally told us to wait at the airport until it arrived, assuring us it was only going to be another 30 minutes. We ended up leaving, without her bag, 2 hours later. They said they would call us when it arrived. No such luck. We went back to the airport in the morning and it had just shown up and nobody knew why they were holding it. I understand if they misplace the bag, but to string us along for almost a whole day waiting on a call from them that never came is really just a miserable experience.

sokoloff 7y ago
Tell the airline where you're staying and where they can deliver the bag. Ask them the policy on reimbursing the purchases that you'll need to make to get by in the meantime. I've had an airline drive our bags 50+ miles to deliver them, but they are not likely to open with that as their initial offer.
- apacheCamel 7y ago
  Honestly, I will have to try this. I am a pretty passive person so my head usually goes to "just nod and say ok a bunch" during confrontations like this but the luggage experience had me pretty upset. Thank you for the advice!
- DuskStar 7y ago
  I had a trip where one (of several) bags got diverted and ended up arriving a day late - Delta got it to us ~125 km away in time for the second day of skiing. I don't remember if they comped the ski gear we bought in the interim, though...

NikolaNovak 7y ago

It strongly depends on whether you're a "few times a year leisure traveller", or "multiple times a week business traveller". First few minutes of "Up in the air" will give you a good idea of how strongly business travellers optimize. At my peak when I was doing 75+ flights/year, I would leave home at 7am to be on the 8am flight - this included taxi, security, boarding, and 20 minute margin for unexpected issues. I pack light and tight into a backpack that goes underneath my seat, because the flights on Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal Canadian corridor are 80+% priority status, daily travellers, and they ferociously fight for overhead space. Put it a different way - a 20 minute annoyance once a year is, bad but meh. 20 minute annoyance twice a week for a year - that's FULL WORK WEEK lost.

scarface74 7y ago
I fly out of Atlanta (the world’s busiest airport). While it’s usually not that bad, I would never take a chance on arriving less than the recommended two hours.
- NikolaNovak 7y ago
  It's two intersecting curves: - Risk, which is inversely related to early arrival - Wasteage, which is directly related to early arrival The slope of the curves is largely impacted by: - Personal risk tolerance; but also - Frequency of flying Personally: * When I fly for vacations, I am "arrive early and wait" type of person - typically 3 hrs or more. I have no problems being relaxed and reading at the airport :). * But when I fly weekly for work, I just can't _afford_ to be that early. The math is simple - 2hrs early times two flights a week times 45 weeks (assume few weeks of vacation or working remotely etc) is... 180 hours wasted at the airport. Holly crap, I just spent a month of work at the terminal! If I only arrive one hour before flight, I reduce that number by 90hrs. That's more than two work weeks saved - for how much additional risk have I taken? How many incidents will I incur? If I miss one out of every X flights due to reduced margin, am I still ahead? A lot of it is down to routine. I believe (but don't have math for this) that I have higher risk on my vacation trips, even with increased margin & time, as I don't have the routine down. Whereas on my weekly trips, 15 minutes is plenty. (I fly out of Pearson, which is about half the yearly throughput of Atlanta. Over 7 years, I have never missed a flight due to these margins. I did once miss a flight because I forgot my wallet - since then I have two wallets: one stays in the travel backpack, always; and one is in my pants. I like systems :)

cbzoiav 7y ago

As someone that flies short haul in europe fairly often by far the biggest factor for me is having to wait for my bag. Not only is it the entirely random amount of time it takes (from the luggage beating you there through to the best part of an hour) but it means I can't book an uber until after i've picked it up / anyone picking me up has gone over the N minutes free / I miss a train and have to wait 30 minutes for the next one. Time on the flight seated is not lost. I can work from a laptop, read, sleep etc. Many airports outside of peak you can comfortably arrive less than 30 mins before the flight (easy if there is reliable public transport, quiet roads, your company is paying or its a €30 flight so you don't care too much if you miss it and have to get the next one). Whereas the valuables problem is easily fixed. Phone in pocket and 14" laptop sleeve fits in the back of the seat or both in a much smaller bag.

berbec 7y ago
> its a €30 flight Oh my Europe!

odiroot 7y ago

I fly Berlin - Warsaw (my two "hometowns") quite regularly. Takes me 15-20 minutes to get to the airport, then around 10-20 minutes inside, thanks to the awesome Tegel airport. I usually leave my flat about an hour before the flight. Frequently end up with 10+ minutes buffer of idle waiting. Around 50 minutes later I land in Warsaw (another awesome international airport). Another 20-25 minutes later and I'm at my mother's house. All in all under 3 hours time. Just for reference the same route by car takes about 5h and by train around 7h. I know my example is very specific and understand it cannot apply to most of the flights but still.

eknkc 7y ago

I generally leave my home 1 hour before the flight then leave the landing airport immediately since I don't have checked in baggage. The entire endevour is around 1.5 hours + flight duration.

Roark66 7y ago

I fly Gdansk-London Luton, less frequently these days, but I used to do it every week. It was definitely not an all day enterprise. I even managed to get back on the same day few times. To get to the airport on time I need to leave home at 4am. Not exactly convenient, but doable. A bit over an hour to get to the airport, then I have about 45 min at the airport to get through security, eat breakfast, wait for my flight etc. 6am flight leaves, just under 2 hours later it lands at Luton, but there is a 1h time difference so it lands at 7am local time. Now the worst part of the whole journey, getting through UK customs - if I'm lucky it may take 10 minutes. Otherwise if lots of planes just landed there is a huge queue and an hour long wait. However, it is very rare that I would leave the destination airport later than 8am local time. Then there is a 10 min bus ride to the Luton Parkway train station. Fast trains to London leave every 10-15min. I'm usually in central London no later than 8:30-45. Just enough time to get a coffee before starting work at 9am.

rando444 7y ago

Things like this are definitely all in a person's head. Houston airport used to have lots of complaints from people about bag wait times. To resolve the problem they moved the arrival gates as far away from the baggage claim as possible, making people have to walk 12 times farther to get their bags. Complaints about waiting for checked bags dropped to near zero. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/opinion/sunday/why-waiting-in-line-is-torture.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/opinion/sunday/why-waitin...

mLuby 7y ago
That's brilliant. Dark, but brilliant. I've often thought, waiting at the baggage carousel, that I'd be willing to unload other peoples' bags just to get mine out faster. But really it's just because waiting is so terrible.

diminoten 7y ago

Even when I was flying out of ORD, I doubt I ever arrived more than 30 minutes before boarding started, and I was always early enough to grab a bite and chill for a bit. In DCA I tend to clock the "door to gate" time at 35-40 minutes, and that's from out in Bethesda. Nowadays I probably arrive 15 minutes before boarding to my local airport, which is tiny, so it's never a problem.