If you check in your suitcase when traveling by air, you usually pay extra and lose valuable time after arriving at the baggage carousel. This is why many passengers, especially on short-haul flights, only travel with hand luggage.
What is convenient for the traveler and good for the wallet causes a lot of problems for the airlines: because there is far too little space in the overhead compartments of the aircraft for all the suitcases and bags being carried, boarding often becomes a mammoth task for passengers and crew.
A lot of time passes before all the luggage is stowed correctly – often more than the flight planners had planned for boarding. The result: the plane misses its slot for departure and is delayed.
Airlines want to prevent this. Many airlines have therefore tightened the reins. They are stepping up checks on hand luggage. Passengers who turn up at the gate with hand luggage that is too big, too heavy or too much will have to check it in without further ado.
Positive impressions, but no concrete figures
Swiss has also been enforcing stricter controls on hand baggage for several months now – and after the challenging summer flight operations, is taking positive stock. Heike Birlenbach, Chief Commercial Officer and interim CEO of Swiss, recently said at an online conference: «There have been noticeable improvements. The stricter hand baggage checks have helped to speed up boarding and thus made an important contribution to punctuality.»
When asked by Travelnews, Swiss spokesperson Michael Pelzer explained: «Based on experience and booking patterns, we recognize conspicuous flights in advance. Then, if necessary, we increasingly rely on a corresponding check at the gate.» There is basically no leeway here. «If we discover at the gate that a piece of hand baggage does not meet the requirements, it must be checked in retrospectively and carried in the hold.»
Swiss had already taken measures some time ago to raise customer awareness of the issue. The airline explicitly communicates the rules for hand baggage on its website, in the booking confirmation and again at online check-in.
Swiss is unable to quantify the specific benefit of the stricter checks at the gate. Spokesman Michael Pelzer says: «Unfortunately, we cannot make an exact statement about the proportion of boarding-related slot forfeitures. The work processes surrounding boarding and ground handling are dynamic; numerous factors constantly interact and influence each other.»
Oliver Buchhofer, Chief Operating Officer of Swiss, provided figures on this at the aforementioned media conference. According to these figures, technical reasons, problems with ground handling or delays during boarding have been to blame for one in four delays since the beginning of the year. According to Buchhofer, this proportion is significantly lower than last year.
The stricter hand baggage controls therefore seem to have a positive effect. Swiss would be well advised to retain them. It has also initiated a further measure to prevent delays during boarding. As the aviation portal «Aerotelegraph» reported in June, Swiss is installing larger luggage compartments in three Airbus A320s and five A321s. They will offer 60 percent more space for hand baggage than the existing compartments.