Originally Posted by
BCDurbin
I think what Fly was asking was does it affect the overall weight - not the overall customer service aspect!
Yes, Fly, it does affect the weight. Even though the standard weight of a passenger includes their carry-on items - putting their carry on items in a cargo area vs. the overhead bid affects the total weight. Therefore if you bring bags back into the cabin, from the cargo area, your total weight "on paper" goes down! Put them back into the cargo area - it goes up! "on paper"
Used to do this all the time on the SAAB!! because we still used paper!! ;-)
Originally Posted by
KC10 FATboy
I work for a carrier who before a merger did not charge or bags. After the merger, the decision was made to charge for bags. And as such, the number of carry-ons increased.
From a weight and balance perspective, I don't think anything has changed. The companies use "wags" anyways to determine weight and balance. I think these wags are set for the worst case scenarios and as such, the jets seem to be well within weight and balance tolerances.
If anything, the charging for checked bags has meant delays in boarding. On full flight, the gate agents, ground crews, and FAs are busy gate checking bags that were too large or had no space left in the overhead bins. This had led to late departures not to mention some disgruntled passengers.
This is exactly what I was getting at. I was wondering if the policy is leading to significantly heavier ac (real weight) or cg movement. Having had some "interesting" flights in misloaded planes, I am wondering if an unforeseen consequence could be an out of cg or overweight ac.
I imagine a heavy +/- 5000 lbs fairly evenly distributed would not make much of a difference. But I remember a few years ago, the FAA increased standard weights following a turbo prop crash (1900 with aft cg if I recall). In ac which are fairly weight restricted, has anyone noticed the ability to carry additional pax/cargo? And has calculated cg shifted?