Jaunted

The Pre-Flight Phone Call
When the Detroit stuff went down, and the airlines started with their weird rules-that-would-look-like-they-were-taking-action-but-wouldn't-actually-stop-someone-intent–on-blowing-up-a-plane-from-blowing-up-a-plane, we wondered if our cabin baggage situation would change. We didn’t want to trust the info on the website in case it was out of date; we figured it was safer to phone up and ask a human.

So on Saturday (three days before we flew), we called the airline. A nice Kiwi lady told us that we should get to the airport a little earlier than normal, and expect an extra security check, but that our baggage allowance was unaffected. In Premium Economy, she said, we could check in two suitcases of 32kg each, and, in addition, take two bags of up to 7kg each, a laptop, and our purse, onto the plane as hand baggage. And when we asked her to define a “bag”, she said it could be anything – even a wheely case. Yup, we could stroll onto the plane trailing two little suitcases plus with our laptop and our purse slung over our shoulder.

Wow, we thought. What generosity! In fact, being used to Ryanair, EasyJet and United, we checked no less than three times that she was telling us the truth. We even wrote it down to make it more believable.

The Nasty Surprise at Check In
So we rolled up at Heathrow at 1.10pm for our 3.45pm flight, with two (underweight) suitcases, one carry-on case, a laptop bag and a purse in tow. We queued for 20 minutes to check in (the queue for Biz/Premium Economy was easily as long as the Economy queue—nice one ANZ).

And then, when it was finally our turn, we were told that we’d been misinformed. Yes, said the check in woman, ignoring the tears welling up in our eyes, of course we were allowed a purse and a laptop. But they had to fit inside our carry-on case. This was a new rule imposed by BAA (the UK equivalent of the TSA), she said. Actually, that’s wrong—we later confirmed it’s the airlines that set the rules.

Anyways. Turns out that the helpful ladies manning the UK ANZ helpline are based in New Zealand. And in New Zealand there are no new terror regs. And nobody bothered to tell them that in the UK, and the States, there are. Whoopsies!

So not only has the cabin baggage been shaved down to one item, they’ve even reduced the weight limit of said item from 7kg to 6kg. Yet they don’t tell you this until you’ve packed up, left home and arrived at check in. We did point out that they should probably make their customers aware of this by email or what-not; they said the information was up on their website and it was all our fault for calling the helpline. Of course it was!

The Dreaded Repacking
We put our absolute essentials (laptop, camera, medication, book) in our wheely case and were given special dispensation to take it through at 10kg—not that anyone checked it at any subsequent point. We paid £10 to get our hold cases shrink-wrapped in case they burst due to their newly overstuffed status. Then we left check in at 2.30pm and sprinted to the gate.

Shenanigans at the gate
As we said, nobody weighed our bag. We didn’t even get searched at the gate – they seemed to be pulling over ever other person, so there was a huge long queue, but otherwise, boarding was normal. Oh, and we spoke to the Operations Manager there who said that she’d been called by check in and told that we were trying to smuggle through two wheely cases plus two other bags onto the plane. So not only were the check-in staff misinformed about the rules and not only did they tell us this crackdown was at the behest of BAA (turns out they even “misspoke” about normal, non-terror-reg baggage rules too), but they like to tell easily disprovable untruths about paying passengers too. Go Air NZ!

The Ops Manager, to be fair, was very nice. She gave us her card, apologized for the dismal service and communication failures, and promised to give the check in staff a bollocking and to follow up with us Stateside.

We made our plane, just, but needed some pharmaceuticals to calm down. We then got to our seat to find it soaking wet and un-sittable on, but that’s a story we’ll save for tomorrow.

The (Largely Non-Existent) New In-Flight Regulations
Of the mid-flight security measures, we (thankfully) saw pretty much zero. The moving map was on the entire time (but to be fair we were mostly flying over Greenland and Canada, so perhaps they don’t count), we were allowed blankets, and could walk around the entire flight, apart from the 20 minutes before landing (apparently those silly rules only lasted five days). The only thing that was different was that the pilots weren’t allowed to tell us where we were, so when we had a prime view of the Las Vegas Strip from the window, we had to spy it ourselves by, um, looking at the moving map and out the window. Great logic, TSA. Seriously, congrats.

But at least, despite the trauma, we felt safer, right? Wrong. We still went through security without anyone picking up on a vial of Touche Eclat (er, liquid), a bottle of hand sanitizer (er, gel) and an Epipen (er, a hypodermic needle filled with liquid) stuffed in our bag. Lucky we were using ours for grooming and medicinal purposes, rather than blowing up planes over the US of A, no?

Related Stories:
· How American Airlines and I Survived The British Airways Strike Together [Jaunted]
· Travel Ranting on Jaunted [Jaunted]

[Photo: Julia B]