Flying In The Friendly Skies

Shanah Tovah!

 I have been doing a lot of flying lately and observing the extraordinary maneuvers contrived by the passengers to ensure that their luggage goes on the plane with them.  I can understand boarding with a small overnight case and maybe a large purse or briefcase; I do this myself when I go from our condo in Sarasota to our studio in Manhattan.  But it is amazing to see the numbers of people simply flouting the rules for the dimensions of luggage to be taken aboard or bringing on two or three pieces in direct contravention of the two pieces maximum rule.  I find it interesting that none of the airline personnel at the gate make any effort to stop this, and indeed I have for many long years been amazed at the widespread indifference to passengers breaking the rules, in this or in boarding in the wrong sequence, oh, any number of behaviors which always seem to me to be of a piece with the robust capitalism exuded by so many of those boarding--like the bankers, the real estate developers and the like--who seem to think rules are made to be broken!  Since I take advantage of being so obviously old I go on when they announce that privilege for the elderly, the infirm, and those traveling with children, and thus I often hear the staff aboard the plane complaining about the horrific amount of heavy luggage they are asked to fling up into those bins.  And one wonders at the people who cheerfully bring on pieces they themselves cannot conceivably manage to place in the overhead racks when they might have checked them.  And the people who quite cynically bring on over sized pieces which then have to be "checked" at the front of the plane which they can retrieve the minute the flight is over.  My daughter observed that in this manner they avoid paying the charge of checked luggage.  Or perhaps, I thought, they feared lost luggage.  I am happy to check mine through.  My husband and I once went to Venice and the luggage arrived the day we were leaving Venice and followed two days later back to our home in the States.  Another time my children and I got to Rome and our luggage never made the connection in Paris which was heavenly since Air France later brought it to our front door in Rome without any effort on our part.  The idyllic time for flying was the months after 9/11 when it was forbidden to bring anything aboard into the cabin.  One simply boarded fluidly and easily without aggression or agony. Everything was checked.  What peace would reign again if the airlines were to forbid luggage in the cabin of the plane!  We would all be equal, there would be no competition, no deceit, no pretense.  The present system will not work in the long run; it gets worse every day, and suddenly the airlines will discover that for some very good reasons that they will discover it is in the interests of maximum safety that passengers board without holding on to their luggage.