A rant about Lufthansa baggage allowance

Original title was... Lufthansa! There's no better way to fly!

Not Quite true..

Last week I took a Lufthansa flight to geneva..

Did the usual quick Check in.. but not at a counter with the conveyor belt.

Went to the luggage drop off point and the Bitch check in assistant informed me that I was 2 KG over the limmit.

"You have to pay excess baggage charge" and proceeded to put the transit labels on my case.

I then asked her if I could have my bag back and take out some stuff and carry it as hand luggage..

"No, because I have already put the labels on!."

Then she said that as I already had a Camera bag with me, I cannot have 2 pieces of hand luggage!!

So, can anyone tell me why a laptop bag isnt classed as "Luggage"? Cos i saw many folk with a hand bag of varying sizes and a lappy too!..

Lufthansa! Theres no better way to get ripped off! 10€ per Kg

ALL the airlines are introducing tougher regulations on weight and the number of pieces you can have as hand bagge and checked baggage.

€ 10 / kg sounds less than what I hear "The World's Favourite Airline" are charging.

I'm the bloke who broke the scales at Briz-Vegas Airport but they didn't charge me extra.

This is why I weight my bags before I fly. If I think I'm a bit over, I am VERY nice to the check-in employees beforehand.

Carry-on bag requirements are getting stricter, which may not be a bad thing, as on some flights I barely find enough room for my purse in the overhead compartments!

To be fair though, shouldn't they weigh the bag and the passenger together?

There should simply be a total weight allowed per ticket, you choose how to distribute it among your baggage and your body.

I totally agree! And while we are being daft, I would like to suggest a noise allowance. If you are travelling with children then you should not be allowed on with noisey toys. It should be mandatory to put them in the hold/ burn them. Lufti seems to like letting noisey children onto flights! However I am surprised they charged you, I wasn't charged for being 3kg over, I think it depends on the staff at the time.

Airlines are definitely getting much stricter, although I haven't had any issues with Lufthansa yet. Paying for extra weight if it's only a few kilo over definitely depends on the staff; I've gotten away with up to 10kgs extra, but I was also once charged for 1 piddly little kilo (Air France, hate them).

Aer Lingus now charge for checked-in bags... €5 per bag each way if you book your check-in bags in advance online, €8 per bag if you wait until you are checking in at the airport. They are now also weighing every piece of hand luggage and will charge €8 per kilo above 6kg... they're getting very strict on size too. They used to be the most lenient airline and I never once had an issue despite being waaaay over the limit, but those days are gone.
I wouldn't mind so much if their tickets were cheaper, but from Munich they're still expensive so it really riles me having to pay to check in bags and pay for a cup of tea on board as well.

Frankly I find LH to be far laxer over charging for overweight baggage than other airlines.

Many years ago BA charged me for overweight HANDLUGGAGE in Manchester on way to Hamburg.
I wrote them a friendly letter afterwards pointing out that the heavy books I had in handluggage
could just as well have been purchased at WH Smiths inside the airport (after checkin) rather
than at WH Smiths in Northwich beforehand...

Although I didnt explicitly demand refund they did eventually refund.

BA have been cracking down again recently.
When checking in at SWISS in Los Angeles there was a passenger unreasonably arguing
with staff over his WAY OVER the limit baggage...

As I said, I find LH to be generally accomodating with luggage weight.

oh, the hand baggage thing gets my blood boiling, all those a**holes with laptop bags, shopping bags and then their fucking suitcases all have no problems taking all the extra space in ecomony, and then those of us with a small bag have no fucking place to put our one piece of carry on because others don't feel it necessary to check a bag.

Its amazing how many people dont understand the number "one". As in:
- one piece of hand luggage
- one chocolate (to kids when you open a tin & offer - for our kids the number "1" doesnt seem to exist...)

I actually believe that they should do that. Not to punish overweight passengers, but hey, it would be nice to argue "if I weighed 50kg more, you would let me board with no extra cost, so please let the extra 10kg in my luggage pass."

I doubt it would happen though.

I got extra baggage once for having a small day pack, my purse and a fur coat with me, the man at the gate said I had 3 pieces then.

I agree it doesn't make sense, but I don't think airline policies care too much about logic. Laptop usually means business travellers and business times usually mean absolute rip-off rate flights. In return, a blind eye is turned to an overstuffed samsonite pulley case, a laptop bag and a full handbag. Sometimes the insanity drives me mad, but I've probably benefitted from their lack of logic and consistency at least as much as I've suffered so I suppose it balances out eventually.

My sister once had to bring a hat in its box as a pressie on her trip. So she had her handbag and a hat box. At Heathrow customs, they stopped her and said that she had 2 pieces of hand luggage and was only allowed one.
She looked at the custom officer, opened the hat box, took the hat out, put her hand bag in the box and the hat on her head and said, "now I have only one". Basta!
They let her go through.

This cannot have anything to do with customs officers. HM customs (or Zoll in DE) are not concerned with such issues.

I´d go further, they banned smoking because it caused stress and possible health issues with other passengers...so why not ban children altogethor too

or let me smoke...

And whilst we´re here, has anyone on a relatively empty flight been told that they can´t change seats because it would "upset the trim of the aircraft"
...a 300 tonne aircrafts trim upset because I moved 3 ft forward. I think not.

PS hello all, will be down that way soooon...

Ehhhhh I would get the hell off any commercial plane that couldn't cope with that. So if you get up to go to the loo the plane would nosedive? Maybe the staff were bored since the flight was empty and thought they'd entertain themselves...

BMI have tried that excuse twice in the last month.

Daft sods.

My gf had a rather annoying experience with LH a few weeks back. She was going on a business meeting (same day travel) and all she had with her was her laptop and her handbag. They said that that counted as 2 pieces of carry-on and this was not allowed. BUT if she took out her laptop and put her handbag into her laptop case and carried her laptop then it would be ok. She argued that it was the same thing but they wouldn't listen. So she had to take her laptop out of its case and put her handbag into it and carry her laptop under her arm

they seem to have all gone a bit mad since the new security measures came in last August. I now always approach security with my computer already in hand and my handbag inside the laptop bag. They know I'm doing this so I'm not hiding anything, one of them even thanked me once for thinking of this and not waiting to be asked. For them, that means only 1 bag and 1 computer going through the scanner instead of 2 bags and 1 computer so they think it's more efficient even if we think it's dumb.
I spend quite a bit of time in airports so have given up wasting my energy using logic and instead entertain myself watching other people try in vain to win or by testing how good I am at picking the right staff or tactic to get away with extra luggage, changing unchangeable tickets etc.

To be fair to the staff: these regulations where brought in after the scare regarding liquids and bombs on planes. Afterward, I think there was a EU directive which means the rules are now EU wide. I watch weekly countless people not understand when they say:

1 PIECE OF HANG LUGGAGE IS ALLOWED.

Accordingly to the Law...

So you may slag of the workers - you may even laugh at them enforcing these stupid rules but you are laughing at the wrong person/people...it was the Governments of the EU that brought them in!!!

PS. It will take a few years before people will finaly realise 1 means 1 - just bring everyting in a 1 bag (with the etra stuff or bags tucked inside) and then take it out on the otherside...

That is to me the really annoying part in it. Leaving you no option. I'd go beserk over that if that happened to me.

This is also party the airlines though wanting to gouge more money.

I had the same issue once at Heathrow as well. I had a bookbag and a plastic bag with a vinyl record in it. So of course I was told I'm only allowed one bag and the plastic bag was part of the count. I took the record out of the bag and held it in my hand through security in order to be compliant.

It may be - What I learnt in my Public Economic lessons - is that regulations and big government tends to help those that can lobby the best. So it wouldn't surprise me if Airlines saw a stricter luggage policy as a way to open up another revenue stream!!! Just goes to show why big government tends to suck...

Stanford for smarter Government not bigger Government...

Yep, called cargo...an inventive way for an airline to sub as a shipping company!

This is so they can advertise fares for tuppence but then make up the money on "excess" luggage fees.
Yes the trend to too much hand luggage was an issue but it was the airline industry that enouraged it to be honest.

3 weeks ago I brought my new bike back over with me from Heathrow to Frankfurt. I had specifically booked Lufthansa about 2 weeks previously as the website stated that there was no additional charge for a bike in addition to normal checked in luggage (piece of sporting equipment). However on the day of flying I was charged an additional 40 EUR for taking the bike on, apparently the Lufthansa policy had changed 3 days earlier..

This was rather annoying you could say

Not so much - as a former employee of something to do with the Kranich, LH Cargo actually makes more money than LH Passage (the passenger bit). In many cases, Passage routes are subsidised by Cargo.
And a frozen dead dog in a mincer will make more profit than LH Systems ever will *cough*.

coming back from Canada after christmas, they wanted to charge me 40Euro for excess baggage, you are allowed 2 bags, at 50pounds each, I had 2 bags, but one was 70 the other 30, so, I made them give me my bags back, and I transfered stuff from one bag to the other to make both 50, I also blocked one of their check in counters, I was not letting them get away with that.

My mistake. I meant where they scan you and your hand luggage.

Depending on which class of ticket you buy you are either allowed 1 or 2 pieces of carry on luggage.
Laptop bags (small and not overfilled), Purses, and briefcases and NOT counted against your allowance. Should the chek-in person
think otherwise, tell them to look-up the correct on "GG INFO LH BAGGAGE". If they still don't under stand that, say the
LH Intranet. Still failing that the person must be new and is utterly clueless. Ask for a Supervisor.

However the MUC-GENEVA flights are usually done with small business type jets and further limits on
weight, size, and piece quanity may apply on these flights.

LH Baggage guidlines
(Notice the below says "In Addition to" your Hand baggage)

I guessed as much this morning about the first class and business class when I saw some guy with two bits of equipment (He sat in First class).

It seems that the EU wide regulations may have been only for the liquid stuff and the one bag policy is for the UK with Airlines able to interpret and enforce them slightly differently. Overall, that's why I carry my laptop in a newly bought mini travel case that include all my stuff for a week - neatly stuffed inside... In fact the bag industry may have had a part to play in this conspiracy - as I bet they have sold loads of these new travel bags...

My wife laughs at me but I'd rather not have to argue with the idiosyncracies of each Airlines interpertations of the new rules...

"Theres no better way to fly"

Yes there is - its called Emirates (and possibly those other newish airlines from the Middle East trying very hard like Etihad, but I have not flown with them yet)

Last week flew to Chicago with dear old LH. Food was average (I'm talking Economy class of course) but as for Entertainment, three large screens hanging from the ceiling showing two films of their choice, when they choose, is no longer the best in customer service I am afraid.
Legroom was not brilliant either, but tolerable given the seat in front of me was not reclined during the flight.

The retrun flight from DC with United was a little better - a couple more inches legroom, and a choice of 5 films to watch on the screen in front of you set in the headrest of the seat ahead of you. Fine till that person reclines coz the screen doesnt tilt so it then faces downwards and not towards your eyes.

But the best bit? The pre-meal drink was served "on the house" - the wine offered during the meal cost $5 a bottle !!! I took the free orange juice at that point, but the number of people handing over five bucks for a small bottle was amazing.

"Theres no better way to fly" - do the marketing /advertising people who come up with such tag lines or approve them ever send staff incognito on the competitors planes to compare and check?

Flew to the US with Delta. The in-flight entertainment was great. A choice of at least a dozen movies and as many TV shows. Some documentaries and radio channels plus a selection of games although with touch screen they are difficult to play without pissing off the person in front of you. The trivia quiz was good, where you are up against whoever happens to be playing at the time. You can see all entrants seat numbers so you can twat them in the head on the way past if they are too good at it.

I can confirm Emirates are fantastic, have flown long haul with them numerous times and never been charged for excess baggage, nor troubled over copious amounts of heavy hand luggage... though maybe I am in for a rude shock next time I get on a plane... thinking of via through the US anyway due to a higher baggage allowance.

You get your own TV with Emirates too...

SingAir also wonderful.

Touch screens located on the back of the headrest are not so good though if you get a heavy handed, avid video game player behind you who wants to play space invaders...

I did an LH/United flight back in the end of December. I was in Economy Plus and very happy to have not been in Economy where there was a screaming baby...I could only fainly here it. I felt a little lucky. Though I didn't have much luggage then.

I am wondering how Scandanavian Airlines is going to handle my laptop bag, which is a larger messanger bag with an laptop pocket and then my cat in her cage. Thankfully they have the highest weight allowance for a cat and cage. I hope she doesn't meow the whole time, the vet told me to give her Bendryl to help her. I might be taking some of the Benedryl myself to help me sleep next month.

About smoking too, Dulles airport has this room and it is awful since it smells and there are too many people in there. You walk out with a cloud of smoke. Much to my surprise when I arrived in Germany there were these open smoking areas. So nice...I loved 'em. Sad to say my bf said they are going to get rid of them. I do need to quit smoking...

Having been subjected to several transatlatic crossings recently, all econ class I found LH's food far better than
United's and SWISS was just as good as LH, possibly marginally better.


I suspect in many lines of business the operations people could cheerfully strangle their marketing colleagues.
I'm in a large IT company and the trouble our marketing people cause by constant renaming of products etc is a pain...

Aer Lingus have also started to charge for every bag that you check-in. I don't think it has anything to do with regulations it is just another way to "earn" money. The EU liquid regulations for hand baggage are a farce as well. I saw a guy at Dublin last week who had his shampoo, gel, aftershave and shaving foam confiscated at security. He tried making the point that he was then going to go to the shop (like a big Douglas) ten yards away that were openly selling all the things that he just had removed from his hand baggage. What is the point of banning taking liquids through security when you can buy the exact same thing after security?

Liquids are banned so that you cannot try and prepare organic peroxides on the flight. Then use these to blow the plane up. This was the result of the terror alert on tenth of august last year (the day I tried to move to Munich...). The rules are a farce as organic peroxides are difficult to make. I can't imagine dropping the baby changing table in the loos of a plane - mixing my pretend shower gel with my pretend shampoo. Then transferring them into something which when detonated will act as a bomb...

Isn't the point that the stuff you're taking through in shampoo, gel or aftershave containers may actually not be the stuff you can get in Douglas, but some noxious mixture designed by Al-Qaida's resident cosmetician which when released into the cabin will unleash terrorism over the Western world? They don't want to ban you from using shampoo, they want to ban you from having the opportunity to carry bomb-making/otherwise dodgy liquids onto the plane.
Edit: rich mole was faster.

I didn't realise Dublin had an Al-Qaida branch but flippancy aside there must be a foolproof way to check that toiletries are actually toiletries. In any case you can bring this stuff through if the containers are less than 100ml and in a see through bag. I am not a chemist but who is to say whether these materials that are allowed through could also be used to make a bomb.

Bullshit.

It was all bullshit from the start. Anyone who knows anything about chemistry knows that it's at the very least implausible. Thomas Greene explains why it's fucking impossible, but that hasn't stopped otherwise enough rational people from believing all the fucking bullshit alarms that they'll accept the loss of one civil liberty after another and parrot the party line.

We are at war with Eastasia.

The war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of previous wars, is merely an imposture. It is like the battles between certain ruminant animals whose horns are set at such an angle that they are incapable of hurting one another. But though it is unreal it is not meaningless. It eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair.

woof.

@topcat1

I'm guessing the answer to that is time and training.

It already takes too long to get through the baggage screening bit at UK airports where all they are doing is taking out the liquids. Imagine how long it would take them to take all the liquids out. Test them and give them back to you.

Not that I agree with the policy I just guess its there reason.

Well they are letting stuff through that is in 100ml containers and inside a see through plastic bag, so are they testing these or are they just taking the chance that putting it in a see through plastic bag would be too much trouble for a dedicated terrorist. I don't think I am the only person that thinks it is a farce and will have a look at BD's link.

most people find it a pain in the ass about the liquids and flying, but its not just one airline doing it, its all of them, so, if you want to fly, we need to jump thru their hoops, or start taking the train, and ground all the planes, and maybe, the airlines might listen then.

The "extra measures" taken these days are what is called "security theatre". Google the phrase if you don't believe me. It's nothing more than an attempt to control people and make them think they're safer. Not a single measure taken now would have prevented the 9/11 attacks. Not one. No, the terrorists wouldn't have had box cutters, but they didn't need them. They had all learned martial arts and it's very easy to make a weapon from within an aircraft. I won't go into how to improvise weapons here because I really don't want to be stopped, held and interrogated by the FBI again the next time I visit the US. Suffice to say that anyone who's been in the military was taught how to do so.

I wrote about just what bullshit it is in my blog. To save you the trouble of clicking, this was the dialog at JFK in December:


And so I gave up the bottles in order to get to my brother's place, a trip that ended up taking some 26 hours all told. I'd forgotten about the 33cl can of Coke and the 20cl can of Malvern (sparkling water) in my jacket pocket. The jacket went through the X-ray machine. I noticed the cans when I put the jacket back on. They didn't.

This is not about security. It's about controlling people. Nothing more. The airlines won't do anything about it on behalf of their passengers because they earn more money selling you drinks and can simply wash their hands of the matter and blame airport security.

woof.

Like you say Carm vote with your feet but if only I had wings I would do so. I think however since it is an EU directive as someone said earleir airport authorities and airlines just have to toe the line. I am sure they think this is as stupid as the rest of us do. I did read something about it in the Deutsche Zeitung (ok I read it, didn't understand a word and someone then translated it into English for me) and I think there are plans afoot to have the directive changed in someway because at this point it is just nonsensical.

On a flight from Manchester to Munich last December, I sort of accidentally-on-purpose "forgot" that I had two 280 ml cartons of Ribena blackcurrant juice in my hand luggage when I went through security. My bag went through the scanner and the security staff didn't bat an eyelid. I enjoyed my flight. When the rules get too silly, it restores one's sanity to break them.

The most absurd bit is that the bag for your liquids has to be sealable. What's that all about? Do they think that if you are carrying liquid explosives, you will be dissuaded from opening them if you have to fiddle with the bag? Or have I missed something?

I had to put lipstick in a plastic bag...made no sense...