Security and Carry-On Baggage

 

I have just returned from a trip to Armenia and Georgia, which included a few flights. On the first flight from Frankfurt, I had an experience that encouraged  me to write this blog post. New equipment was used at the security checkpoint and you no longer had to unpack and lay everything down, but could leave everything in your backpack or other carry-on baggage. You only had to take off your belt, coats or jackets and put items from your trouser pockets, for example, into a bowl and they were also x-rayed, too. This new procedure speeds up the process immensely. I liked that. I thanked one of the security officers for his check and he was completely surprised, like many others I had thanked in the past, because normally people just want to scold them. The other reason was oversized carry-on baggage.

That was on the return journey, between Munich and Frankfurt. Before boarding, we were informed that the plane was fully booked (Oktoberfest) and that there might be a lack of space, as there is limited space to store carry-on baggage. We were therefore offered to stow oversized carry-on baggage elsewhere on the plane free of charge. Shortly before “Boarding Complete”, two passengers arrived, let’s call them Karen and Kevin, with oversized carry-on baggage. They seemed to be of the opinion that if you put wheels under wardrobe suitcases, they would pass as carry-on baggage. That may be a little exaggerated, but really only a little. In any case, the flight attendant said that they would just have to push it under the seat in freont; if the hand luggage was within the permitted dimensions, it would fit under the seat. And Karen said: “She isn’t of any help.” And then suggested that they could do the same with smaller pieces of luggage belonging to other passengers. The flight attendant said confidently that she couldn’t punish the other passengers for Karen and Kevin not complying with the previously known rules. Somehow they managed to store their carry-on baggage, but I thought that maybe it should be checked earlier.

Airlines are not a institutions suitable for such checks, because it took a long time to limit the free serving of alcohol, to save on catering, but here there is something else -: excessive carry-on baggage is also a security risk, which is why I believe that it should be regulated by international air traffic control and then also within the framework of security checks. It should be possible to weigh carry-on baggage and the other things that we have to hand over before they are x-rayed, such as coats, jackets, belts and so on, and let's give you a number -: you have to pay for anything that exceeds 10 kilos. That would make it easy to solve this problem. At least that's my opinion, but maybe it is a little too short-sighted, in which case I would like this blogpost to be considered as brainstorming.

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