Kempner’s Unofficial Business
This is a new column by me, Matt Kempner. I’ve been a reporter or editor since gas was about a dollar a gallon and “Hands Across America” was a thing. I’ve spent lots of time covering government, the environment and, for most of my career, business. But I don’t daydream about fiscal policy and corporate earnings. What I love about business is the strategy and the people and the journeys that those people take. I like irony and surprise and nuance. I’ve interviewed soldiers, oystermen, football stars, chicken plant workers, Fortune 500 CEOs, suburban activists and entrepreneurs dreaming big dreams. How cool is that? I’ve teared up in interviews, laughed inappropriately, been yelled at and snookered. I do like an adventure. Let’s see where this one goes.
There was a time when the phrase “checked baggage” had no emotional effect on me. That was in the era when flying was pleasant enough, except for trying not to breathe for a couple hours cause of the guy smoking one row away.
Now, though, I equate the words “checked baggage” with inexplicable delay, hassle and — depending on the airline — getting reamed with fees.
So like a lot of people, I’ve built a close relationship with carry-on baggage. It’s not a perfect friend, but usually it makes my life easier.
Now, an airline group called the International Air Transport Association has determined that my friend is too tall, too wide, and, most especially, too fat to be the best kind of travel companion. The IATA wants me to get a new one to be sure I can travel conveniently.
In an effort to make things “easier for everybody,” the association recently adopted new guidelines for what size carry-on baggage the airlines might allow.
There’s a good chance yours don’t make the cut. Half of Kempner family’s don’t. The new guidelines suggest smaller sizes than those set by some of the biggest U.S. carriers, including Delta Air Lines and Southwest Airlines.
Helpfully, the IATA (pronounced “I Oughta”) said it has been in consultation with luggage makers and that later this year we will be able to visit stores to purchase baggage that complies with the newly suggested dimension. Isn’t it’s nice when industries work with one another to help consumers?
Confession time: I am not a luggage connoisseur.
If luggage says something about the person, I am a battered and deeply dysfunctional mess, so get out of my way, Pretty Boy, with your fancy leather and no duct tape.
My family and I have a motley array of hand-me-down luggage/boxes. I don’t remember which ones do or don’t pass existing carry-on rules.
Yet I can’t recall a gate or flight attendant ever whipping out a tape measure, looking at me sternly and doing that finger waggle that “Deltalina” the Delta flight attendant famously did in that in-flight safety video.
But airlines have diverted my carry-ons to their jets’ underbellies just because I happened to be among the last to board and the folks in front of me had filled every overhead cranny.
This crush of carry-ons is, of course, a direct result of the airlines themselves.
Some airlines – Hello, Delta! – charge for checked bags unless you are giving them something good in another way (carrying the right credit card, holding a pricey first-class ticket, etc.).
So we stuff the contents of our dressers into an oversized carry-on, a purse, pseudo lunch bag, laptop carrier, under a ball cap, inside a folded newspaper and tucked into our boots. Economic forces make us resourceful.
Carry-ons also allow us to avoid spending any more of our lives in an airport than we have to. I don’t want to wait for a checked suitcase to show up in the baggage area 30 minutes after I do. I’ve never really understood the physics of how I stopped in the restroom and still out-walked baggage guys that ride machines with engines.
So, while I must admit that airlines haven’t been measurement jerks to me and my checked bag, I’m still primed to be mad at them and their nickle-and-diming, squeeze-me-into-tiny-seats-while-they-wrack-up-still-remarkably-fat-profits way.
John Mori, the president of Atlanta-based retailer Mori Luggage & Gifts, said he only recently learned about the new guidelines.
For readers with a tape measure handy, the IATA guidelines are for carry-ons no bigger than 21.5” by 13.5” by 7.5”. Compare that to Delta’s official-if-largely-unenforced carry-on limit of 22” by 14” by 9” and Southwest’s 24” by 16” by 10”.
For Mori, personally, the smaller size would mean fitting in one less sport coat or dropping a couple sweaters. Then there is the cost of getting a new carry-on that fits IATA’s measure of perfection. Mori said carry-ons at his stores range in price from $99 to $600.
But Mori isn’t expecting IATA’s move to spark a rapid change in airline carry-on size limits.
When I asked about IATA’s actions, spokespeople for both Delta and Southwest told me they have no current plans to switch to smaller dimensions.
Southwest points out that it doesn’t charge customers for the first and second bags checked, so it’s not like most customers have a financial incentive to pack big carry-ons any way.
And Delta is in the process of installing bigger overhead bins inside its aircraft and expanding a valet carry-on bag service to more flights.
I should be soothed by Southwest and Delta’s comments. But this is the airline industry. There’s no free lunch (or dinner) any more.
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