Bucket Airlines hidden charges

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@dogwatch, there have also been confessions on here of people (men) doing the turning the pants inside out thing to save on space and laundry.

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Well, I'm a man but I'll pass on that.

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@dogwatch, one of them (I'm sure was joking) reckoned you could get 4 goes out of one pair if you also did the back to front thing Laughing

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I could do a week of most sorts of holiday with hand baggage. Including large phone (wouldn't want a laptop on holiday). When I did 10 days in Norway including 8 days sailing in the Arctic my baggage weighed 14 kilos. Though I did check a framed rucksack so that i could carry my stuff comfortably and borrowed oilie trousers on the boat. Included full merino base and enough pairs of cheap and nasty knickers to have clean pair every day and bin after wearing. Two very nice Ayacucho quick drying t-shirts were invaluable, as were walking trousers. Perfect for sightseeing in the rain as well as sailing. In the unlikely event of hot weather could have zipped off the legs. One pair of shoes plus sailing boots. Black down midlayer coat did everything needed. Bamboo fabric pyjamas were decent in shared cabin and didn't get smelly.

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I'm not bothered with trying to cram things in hand luggage any more. There's rarely a big delay at the carousel and I can't be arsed to lug things airside. There can be a problem bagging rack space: thanks to all the people who test the limits.

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I guess you're never really on holiday then, @dogwatch. But the watchword is flexibility and we have a pretty competitive market in air travel. Little to complain about, in my view, especially living in the well-served south of England.

Yes I've done backpacking/trekking/touring with <10kg bag but that's definitely not the way I want to do all my holidays. I avoid having hold luggage where possible because I don't want the hassle of it - 20 or so quid for the cost of it doesn't bother me and I am pretty confident I earn less than the vast majority of people on this forum.

Does anyone not agree that it's already a good system where you pay for what you want/need?

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@johnE, exactly - I really think it's a good system.

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I have just discovered that you can have the best of both worlds! Email this morning from easyJet inviting me, in this busy holiday period at Gatwick, to check my cabin bag FREE at the bag drop zone and then get priority boarding after the easyjet Plus queue!

@miranda, The downside of the system (this is an observation rather than an argument, albeit being the internet it could easily become the latter!), as someone who uses it reasonably fully, is that it slows down security a lot because so many people are carrying so much stuff onto the plane. Cabin baggage allowance could in theory take 5 or 6 trays at security. Passenger throughput with modern security setups like heathrow is largely a function of number of trays per passenger.

It has a similar effect on boarding, as people wander up and down the plane looking for space for their bag. This is one of the reasons BA gave for tweaking its cabin baggage process recently.

You know it makes sense.

What's the benefit of priority boarding? Surely it makes no difference as you have a reserved seat. Even when I've had priority boarding I've waited to be one of the last on the plane, as I don't war on to sit in a cramped seat any longer than I have to. Priority disembarking would seem much more useful.

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A snowHead

@Gaza, that's useful to know - they are obviously particularly keen at present to reduce clutter in the cabin. Not really decided whether to check my bag tomorrow though, as the flight arrives at 1925 and I am hoping to pick up hired car in time to do a trolley dash round the supermarket in Ferney Voltaire as there'll be nothing open up on my Alp, in mid June. So even 10 minutes waiting for a bag could make a difference. My fallback is Migros in the airport, but that's expensive.

@sugarmoma666, I agree about boarding late - I like to be one of the last onto the plane, ideally carrying just my book and a few essentials. If I have checked baggage I'm very relaxed about getting off, too. Watching the same people who stood fretting in a queue to get on the plane fretting in the crowded aisle and furring up their arteries in their anxiety to get off the damned thing. Laughing

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I have no problem at all with the charging structure of Easyjet et al, I do wish however that I could load in all optional costs up front rather than having to proceed through their booking engine. Whilst comparisons across the base cost is a useful indicator (i.e. Kayak\skyscanner), I still prefer to to load in the extras to compare to compare the true cost, especially when I'm travelling with the kids and am likely carrying more stuff such as seats, buggy and occasionally a travel cot.

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Don't we have to go through enough of a palaver to get on a plane these days without having to have a weigh in as well? It's not the same as getting on private planes at tiny airports - I would not use a commercial airline that made me do that. I like to get to the airport at the last minute, already checked in online, and head straight to security - I wouldn't use Easyjet if they started making all their passengers present at the check in desk to be weighed.

Three small kids still take up 3 adult size seats and have the allowance of 3 adult size sets of hand luggage - perhaps it would be good if there were an option for the parent to swap the hand luggage allowances for a free hold bag in that scenario. It seems Easyjet would prefer to have people put stuff in the hold anyway.

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I agree weighing in is not practical (I once weighed in for a flight in the Pacific where my fellow passengers were 3 ginormous Tongans). But few flights are completely full and it's overall load which determines how much fuel is used, not how many bodies. As I said above though, the present arrangements and costs give us plenty of choice.

In the olden days kids paid child fares till they were 12, IIRC.

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Passenger weight isn't as important as you might think...

http://www.aircraftinteriorsinternational.com/articles.php?ArticleID=426

"The results show that in maintaining the same load factor, the calculated loss of 15 [out of 131] passengers would result in a 1.6% reduction in fuel costs. It is assumed that all other operating expenses such as crew, rent and depreciation will remain unchanged, and therefore a reduction in total aircraft operating expenses of 0.4% has been calculated."

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There's a basic problem with per kilo charging - not all airline costs are per kilo moved.

Main office Overheads and profit, staff, aircraft 'real-estate', some Government taxes, checkin facilities, sanitary facilities, airport charges, aircraft cleaning and maintenance etc etc. are all non weight related costs, should a straight per kilo charge be applied it would be obviously unfair.

Perhaps if a fixed fee to cover the above fixed type costs were applied and then a per kilo fee applied once the passenger and luggage were weighed that would be about as fair as you could get. It would however be a massive PITA and obviously would increase flight costs, queues etc etc. I'm pretty sure those complaining about 'hidden charges' would have a field day with the new improved system.

I fly ryanair/sleazyjet fairly regularly and don't have a problem. I buy a cheap flight, play by their rules and usually get from Ireland to England and back for less money then it costs in diesel to get me too and from the airport at both ends. wink

@snowdave, So why do they weigh your luggage?

You know it makes sense.

@johnE, To make sure nothing is too overweight so they can charge you! A standard weight for a passenger and bag is then multiplied by the number of passengers and bags and used to calculate the take off speeds, which is the bit a pilot is really interested in as opposed to the accountants. (That is a bit of a simplification - the smaller the aircraft the more critical).

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@chocksaway,
Is the amount of commercial cargo/mail etc. to be carried calculated after weighting the passengers & luggage or would it not be affected?

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@musher, That's a balance - a long haul will no pretty accurately how many pax it is expecting so will be able to have a good stab at the amount of freight they can carry, each cargo tin will then have a weight - it is difficult to standardise here - imagine a baggage tin full of boxes of flowers vs one full of mail. Also passengers on a full aircraft will self balance - but heavy cargo tins have to be taken into account for trim, imagine an aircraft as an old fashioned set of balance scales - it has to be pretty much in equilibrium.

Most often an aircraft will bulk out versus weight out though.

As an aside there are long haul routes out of Heathrow that are profitable because of the amount of freight carried so the cabins can often have many empty seats. Because of the length of an A340 (directly related to size of hold) you will often find this type on these routes.

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@chocksaway, with modern aircraft, how much is altitude (of take off) part of the payload calculation?

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@pam w, Its significant, but it is what aviators call density altitude (we like to make things complicated) that the calculations are worked on which is effectively a mix of altitude (the higher the more influence and whether we are on a high average or low pressure day), temperature (high = bad) and humidity (high = bad). But as a rough guide at an airport at 1000m on an average day at about 10decC take off roll would be increased by about a quarter to a fifth and rate of climb (important near hills!) would also be reduced. So Chambery in winter there is little or no effect as it is at 234m, but in summer Geneva and Sion will be affected at 400 and 500m respectively. Kathmandu at 1340m - now you have a big issue!

The history behind the VC10 was it was designed specifically for the hot high altitude airports of Africa for BOAC - which was fine when fuel was cheap because it had lots of power, but soon jet engine technology came on which is why the RAF ended up with them!

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They should give us 6ft3 travellers a discount, for being forced to travel with less comfort, with little choice but to wedge knees in the back of the seat in front.
And a further discount if I have to sit next to someone who overflows in to my seat. /stanton /whitetroll

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After all it is free

I think the Bucket Airlines could do themselves a Customer Friendly Makeover by making the charges more realistic. like €5 for a seat change €10 for ticket change. It is not exactly difficult for them ..push of the keyboard !

All the complaints they get would cease & customers would be fine.

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Bucket Airlines hidden charges

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