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WE MAY ALL have to buy new carry-on bags for when we’re flying if the airline industry has its way.
The infamous Ryanair baggage check, where a traveller’s carry-on luggage is put into a cage to ascertain whether it’s too big / too heavy / looks funny, is all very well, but should these new guidelines come in the international standard for onboard baggage will be even smaller.
The new standards are being suggested by industry body the International Air Transport Association (IATA), with the idea being that a standard size of baggage will make boarding and exiting a plane a smoother experience for passengers, with the added bonus of there always being enough room in overhead bins for all passenger luggage, regardless of the size of plane.
The new suggested standard bag measurements are 55 x 35 x 20 cm (or 21.5 x 13.5 x 7.5 inches). Or, if you want a visual:
That might not look too bad, but the new bags would be subtly smaller than the specifications for almost all airlines, not least Ryanair and Aer Lingus.
The IATA have also come up with an “IATA Cabin OK” logo to let airline boarding staff know that your bag meets the agreed guidelines.
“The development of an agreed optimal cabin bag size will bring common sense and order to the problem of differing sizes for carry-on bags,” says Tom Windmuller, senior vice president of the IATA.
We know the current situation can be frustrating for passengers. This work will help to iron out inconsistencies and lead to an improved passenger experience.
While the IATA has no authority to make individual airlines comply with their suggested new guidelines, they claim that several major baggage manufacturers have already “developed products in line with the optimum size guidelines”.
They expect bags carrying the identifying label to reach retail shops later this year.
So why would airlines sign up to these guidelines?
“Low-cost, short flights and charges for large luggage mean that many people are carrying everything they need with them in the cabin, rather than dropping off and collecting suitcases at airports,” Daivd Learmout, editor at Flight Global magazine, told the BBC.
Firms like Ryanair have changed our habits totally.
A smaller per-passenger capacity could save airlines time in dealing with excess cabin luggage, “and time is money”, Learmount said.
And as you might imagine, not all passengers are enthralled at the idea of yet another expense when it comes to air travel:
That probably won’t be enough to stop it from happening though.
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DNA matching is nothing new to the Irish dating scene. Something we’re trying to move away from you might even say.
@Winston Smith: LOL
@Winston Smith:
True.
The gene pool in my parent’s homeplace was shallow enough to paddle in.
Everybody seemed to be a cousin of some sort to everybody else there!
@Michael Kavanagh: “Kevin Bacon” six degrees of separation!!
@Colette Kearns:
Believe me – when it come to acquaintance (especially knowing the bad news) their colective Bacon Number there is a big fat one!
It sounds like another marvelously inventive way for companies to get access to your DNA profile. Be very wary of parting with this information!
@Sean: if a big pharma company bought millions of people’s DNA and then used that to research and find a cure for say, cancer, would you find that unethical? I wouldn’t
@niamh ryan: you believe their goal is always to cure everything…. interesting..!!!
@niamh ryan:with or without permission?
@Bluey: in an ideal world with permission. Specifically for medical research purposes. But I suppose once you hand it over you lose control of it
@Ian Scott: and you think their goal is……
@niamh ryan: to be fair their goal is to generate as much money as possible for as long as possible. Whoever thinks pharma companies are looking to make the world a better place is naive.
@niamh ryan: big pharma finding a cure for something they make millions off…lol…
@David Daly: they are a business of course they are out to make money. They invest billions in research and have a right to charge for their products. Certain types of cancer are no longer an automatic death sentence, people living full lives with HIV, huge breakthroughs in parkinsonism ect. They are making the world a better place for profit. It would be naive to think that anybody would do it for free
@niamh ryan: The Pharma company would would need to know who got cancer and what type of cancer they got in the DNA sample population for it to be useful. You have presented something of a false but meaningless argument here. What is more likely is that the data would be bought by a life insurance company which could then have very real implications for your children or grandchildren. They could be refused a mortgage (based on being refused life cover) because of an increased risk of certain inherited diseases in your DNA. Why not?
The millennials are to busy flicking between pages on their phones as to flicking between the sheets
@dick dastardly: ah sure you’re still pining over Penelope Pitstop.
@Keelan O’neill: now there’s a cartoon character u cud hang ur wet duffle coat on……….(or words to that effect)
They need DNA testing as the amount of people in towns who have the same biological father is crazy now… That was a joke once but no longer…
@TamuMassif2019: are you speaking from experience??
@TamuMassif2019:
You the Daddy?
Some enchanted evening , you may see a stranger,
You may see a stranger, across a crowded room,
And somehow you know, you know even then,
That somehow you’ll see her , again and again…..
Much more romantic way to meet.
@Aine O Connor:
Yup.
Then you go and spoil it all
By saying something stupid like
I’ll swab you.
Genetic profile for romance, hardly. However what a genetic profile App will do is flash warning lights as regards inherited problems, like for instance both parties being CF carriers. That doesn’t need to kill the romance, but it does give the option of going I.V., and screening the embryos before implantation, thus leaving the problem behind. Likewise various of the genes that pre dispose to cancers of one sort or another.
Tinder or what ever app. If you want to meet a serial killer, I’d say it’s a pretty good way.
This country is so inbred it’s new DNA we need!
have your say