Pages

Monday, October 16, 2023

#MicroblogMondays: To check or not to check??

Is there anyone who actually enjoys flying these days??  It feels like it's become more & more stressful, with more and more tasks that were once handled by agents offloaded onto customers (and extra fees charged for every little option, of course...!).  

I'm asking because dh & I just got back home from spending a week with my parents & sister in Manitoba over (Canadian) Thanksgiving. We'll be heading back again at Christmastime. 

Our trip to Winnipeg (via Air Canada) was relatively smooth and uneventful. Pearson Airport in Toronto can be crowded and chaotic at times, but there was hardly anyone in the security lineup, and we breezed on through in no time at all. 

Returning, however, was a different story. First, we woke up to a notification that our flight was delayed by about an hour & a half due to "operational issues."  We still arrived at the airport in plenty of time... and then spent a good half-hour waiting to go through security. I've never seen so many people in the security lineup there as I did yesterday. The waiting area at the gate was also crowded. We were sitting near the check-in desk, and I overheard the attendants telling people the flight was oversold. There were multiple pleas broadcast for volunteers to check their carry-on luggage, free of charge.  

Backtracking a little:  Last year, after hearing one too many horror stories about lost luggage, in airports all over North America but particularly at Pearson, dh & I decided to bite the bullet, pare down as much as possible and fly to Manitoba for Christmas with two small carry-on suitcases only (plus my purse and laptop case as our "personal items"). The limit on liquids & gels was challenging for me (my Ziploc baggie was stuffed to the brim), but I've been keeping some basic personal care items at my parents' house anyway, which helped some. I knew we could do laundry while we were there, and I could borrow items from my mother &/or sister if necessary.  My sister was doing a lot of the necessary Christmas shopping (and we've scaled that back a fair bit in recent years too). 

Still, our bags were pretty well stuffed (winter clothes tends to be a lot heavier/bulkier than summer stuff...!) -- and an eagle-eyed attendant pounced on them and made us try to fit them in the sizer as we were boarding. They wouldn't quite fit in, were tagged and set aside to be checked. If looks could have killed, I would have dropped on the spot from the ones dh (who gets extremely uptight when flying) was giving me then (because of course it was MY fault...!). (It all happened so fast that we were on the plane and in the air before I remembered the bags were not locked.)  Fortunately, both bags arrived on the carousel in Winnipeg, with contents intact (including Christmas presents!). They were considerably less stuffed for the return trip home and all went smoothly then. 

This time around, our bags were not so stuffed, and (as mentioned above) we had no issues on the trip to Winnipeg. Returning to Toronto yesterday, however...!  The tradeoff for the great deal we got on the airfare was that we were in the last "zone" (group) of passengers allowed to board the plane -- and by the time we entered the cabin and found our seats, there was not an empty space in the overhead bins to be seen. We weren't the only ones in this predicament, of course:  the aisle was crowded with people trying to board and people trying to find a spot for their luggage. By some miracle, the flight attendants managed to find spaces for our two bags (plus several others) -- one a couple of rows ahead of where we sat, and one WAY at the back. We had to wait until nearly everyone else had left the plane in Toronto before dh could make his way to the back to retrieve it. 

It feels like a crapshoot:  do you check your luggage (often for a fee, of course) and then pray/cross all the crossables/etc. that it arrives when & where you do?  Or do you go with a carry-on only and pray/cross all the crossables/etc. that there's room for it in the overhead bins by the time you get to board (and that you don't wind up having to check it anyway)?? 

(Pronatalism alert:  Parents travelling with small children, of course, have an advantage:  they get invited to board early, no matter what zone they're in.)  

What do you do?  

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.

1 comment:

  1. We ALWAYS check our bags in - all over the world. Mostly because we go away for longer than a week, and for different climates, and because we're both chronic over-packers! About the only time I haven't is on the occasional very short flight in NZ, but even then I do, because it only entails a five minute wait for bags at the other end. (Yes, our airports are smaller! lol) And only in recent years do I pack a "just in case" change of clothing for my carry on, after someone in Johannesburg took my husband's suitcase accidentally (though thankfully it was returned a few hours later). Staying somewhere we can do laundry or where we know we can buy familiar things (eg toiletries) helps enormously!

    Our long haul post-COVID flights - both involving transfers, with a seven hour/plus one hour flight and a 14 hour plus four hour flight - have gone off without a hitch, with just one or two delays. So too did travel around southern Africa. Touch wood that continues.

    So I think it is different everywhere. My worst ever airport experiences were in Oslo and Rome pre-COVID - oh, and New Delhi when the ground crew were on strike! Though LAX always sucked too. The only place I've ever seen a major problem with overhead lockers being full was in the US. On virtually every trip I made there, and especially memorable was a winter flight from Washington DC to Tampa, I was amazed at the size of suitcases people thought were acceptable to carry on. That was way back in about 1999 or 2000! I hate to think what it's like now post-COVID with all the publicity about delays and lost bags etc. So I wonder if it is particularly a North American thing? And now you're making me nervous about travelling your way in the future. lol

    ReplyDelete