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Tags: Travel Gear / V Australia / Virgin / Luggage / Baggage / Fashion Travel / → All Tags

V Australia Reveals What They Believe To Be The Perfect Travel Bag

Is this the perfect bag for airline travel? V Australia and New York fashion designer Steven Alan think so, especially after they sent him all around Australia on a trip for inspiration to create this accessory specifically for them.

During his trip Down Under, Alan blogged and tweeted about the experience, all the while asking the public for hints on what they travel with and what type of bag they'd like. Finally, he returned and went to work on the prototype with his team, and they emerged with the above bag. Do you like it? We're a bit mixed, since it's kind of big and we prefer a thinner profile for easy overhead bin stuffing, but then we haven't seen it in person.

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Tags: Carry-On Baggage / Security / Canada Travel / Northwest Flight 253 / Baggage / → All Tags

Carry-Ons Banned Through Tonight On USA-Bound Canada Flights

The effects of the attempted terrorist attack on Northwest Flight 253 are definitely still being felt by air travelers today, but perhaps those most stuck by heightened security measures are passengers flying into the USA from Canada.

USA-bound flights from Canada are banning most carry-on luggage through 7pm today, in an effort to alleviate long lines and delayed flights thanks to longer security screenings. Hand-inspecting each passenger's personal items does take some time, after all. If you, or someone you know, is making the border jump today, you'd better take note of the 13 things that are allowed through security, which don't include magazines!

Everything but these 13 things are banned through today...

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Tags: Crime / Baggage / PHX / Phoenix Travel / Airports / Airport News / → All Tags

Cops Nab Phoenix Airport Baggage Thief; Is Your Missing Luggage In His House?

There are baggage thieves, like these petty fellows, and then there are compulsive baggage thieves, like the couple who were just caught after having stolen 1,000+ checked bags from the carousels at Phoenix's Sky Harbor Airport.

Keith King and Stacy Legg-King lived in squalor amongst towers of stolen luggage strewn about their suburban home, the ill-gotten goods pinched by Keith straight from the baggage claims of arriving flights. He was spotted three weeks ago when an airport officer noticed King parking at the airport, taking a bag from the carousel, and then putting it in his car and leaving. After this incident, the police put surveillance on him and caught him in the act again this past Monday. And that's when the operation blew wide open...

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Tags: V Australia / Virgin / Travel Gear / Luggage / Baggage / Fashion Travel / → All Tags

The Search For Ideal Luggage Continues: V Australia's 'Perfect Bag'

It's one of the oldest moneymaking games in the book: convince tourists that the bags they're traveling with aren't safe enough, or convenient enough, or stylish enough, and sell them a more jaunt-friendly bag. Very very soon however, all this could be put to rest by the release of the fruit of the labors of a fashion designer-airline combination.

Whether you're of the type that prefers the sixteen zippered pockets and multitude of snaps, or the type that wants only a simplistic tote, V Australia is asking you to help them design "the perfect bag for the perfect trip."

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Tags: Airline News / Virgin America / Airports / Baggage / Carry-On Luggage / → All Tags

Virgin America Tests Allowing Baggage-Free Passengers To Board First

Ever the innovators, Virgin America is testing a new boarding scheme for speed and efficiency. They've ordered agents at targeted airports to let people without bags board the airplane first, the idea being to seat them and then let everyone else slow down the line while fighting for overhead space. It's the kind of thing that, if you run it through your mind, seems just crazy enough to work. So naturally everyone, us included, is trying to come up with reasons why the new policy is doomed to failure.

Travel blogger Cranky Flier is worried that overly ambitious, roll-a-board toting business consultants will try to sneak onto the plane along with legitimately carryon-free travelers. That would put gate agents in the awkward situation of either having to contradict a customer or letting them cheat. It's not that these passengers would be jumping the line in the strict sense—they have more of an incentive to do that in the status quo, where they're not assured that the people ahead of them will leave overhead space—as much as a "what do you mean my 'backpack' counts as a carryon?" kind of scenario.

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Tags: Crime / JFK / Baggage / Lost Luggage / → All Tags

Two Airport Workers Caught In Baggage Theft Sting At JFK

Reason number 1,679 to avoid checking baggage: yesterday, cops nabbed two JFK airport workers, one a TSA agent, who had been going through passengers' baggage and blatantly stealing items of value.

It seems that the airport and Delta Airlines had noticed an unexplainable amount of missing items from luggage over the past year, and so set up a sting operation to test for sticky fingers among ground crew. The police checked a bag, filled with a laptop, two cell phones and an iPod, onto a flight from JFK to Miami and easily caught the pair of thieves pilfering the goods before the luggage had even boarded the plane.

To confuse matters for the unlucky passenger claiming the bag at its destination, the pair then tore off the bag tag. If convicted, each man faces up to 4 years in prison, so let's hope there's some more condeming evidence back at their homes to keep them out of our baggage claim forever.

Related Stories:
· Sting nabs stickey-fingered JFK airport workers going through luggage [NY Daily News]
· Airport employees caught in theft sting [ABCNews]
· You Know That Thing You’re Afraid Happens to Your Luggage After You Check It? [Daily Intel]
· Travel Crime Coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: tttallis]

Tags: Baggage / Lost Luggage / Shopping / Bizarre Travel / → All Tags

Where Unclaimed Baggage Goes to Die (And Live Again)

Ever lose your luggage on a flight and wonder what happens to bags that never get reunited with their woeful owners?

Well, a good deal of it ends up in Scottsboro, Alabama at a massive thrift store called the Unclaimed Baggage Center. UBC buys unclaimed luggage from airlines in bulk, to the tune of 7,000 new items a day (that's a lot of lost bags!) Then everything is sold to the public out of their Alabama warehouse, and we do mean everything. Clothes, cameras, iPods, exotic souvenirs, prescription eyeglasses, and of course the bags themselves.

They've also got a museum where they put aside the stuff found in lost bags that's just too good to sell—for example, a life-size version of the creepy Hoggle puppet from the movie Labyrinth and a slew of 3,000-year-old Egyptian artifacts. Seems like those could have been reunited with their rightful owners, but oh well, finders keepers.

Related Stories:
· Unclaimed Baggage Center [Official Site]
· US Air Eats Luggage For Breakfast [Jaunted]
· Shopping coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: J-Rad]

Tags: Crouch of Shame / Baggage / American Airlines / Shira Lazar / → All Tags

Travel Woos: Crouch of Shame at American, Before SXSW

Yes, we know it is woes, so don't bother correcting us, but if you take the time to watch the entire video you just might get the joke. If you do decide to watch the video you will see Jaunted Embed Shira Lazar take you through the grueling, painstaking process of the airline crouch of shame, brought on by the 50lb baggage restrictions.

Luckily, it looks like Shira has the process down, she even has a couple tips for our overpacking readers -- jeans and shoes weigh the most, so layer up. Shira was on her way from LAX to AUS for SXSW via AA -- enough acronyms for you?

Related Stories:
· Jaunted Embed Shira Lazar [Jaunted]
· Baggage Scale Crouch of Shame [Jaunted]

Tags: Ryanair / LCCs / Carry-On Luggage / Baggage Fees / Baggage / → All Tags

Ryanair Will Fine You £30 If You Have Too Many Carry-Ons

Checking in luggage, checking in at the airport, choosing the seat you want… we already knew Ryanair was the airline that’ll sting you for as much as it can. But just when Europe was getting used to its crazy rules, it’s gone one further.

Ryanair is now only allowing passengers one item of hand luggage on its planes, whether that’s a suitcase or a teeny purse. Ordinarily, this would be no problem. We would just get a big bag, stuff our camera/laptop/handbag inside it to go through check-in and decant it all the other side of security. Besides, the cabin crew would be too busy posing in their scanties to even notice.

But not anymore. Anyone who arrives at the gate with more than one piece of hand luggage will be stung for a flat £30 ($42) and then will have the offending bag relegated to the hold. The crackdown comes after one passenger apparently arrived at the gate with five whole pieces of hand luggage.

Maybe now it's about time to look into travelling on a slightly more reasonable airline.

Got your own carry-on hell story? Let us know.

Related Stories:
· Is Ryanair The World's Crassest Airline? [Jaunted]
· Baggage stories [Jaunted]
· News: Ryanair introduces £30 excess hand luggage charge [Press Release]

[Photo of plane: elward-photography]

Tags: Airport Hell / Baggage / Luggage / Airline Fees / → All Tags

Vlogging Superstar Falls Victim To Baggage Scale Crouch Of Shame

We like former Defamer Molly McAleer lots, so we were horrified to hear that our internet crush missed a recent flight because of one passenger's baggage scale crouch of shame. Molls reports:

I finally arrived in Boston at 11-something pm after missing my morning flight because 10 extra minutes of sleep, 15 minutes of late cab drivers and 20 minutes of an inconsiderate Persian woman unpacking and repacking her suitcases in front of me at the check-in point when she learned that there was a baggage fee. Apparently the bitch lives under a rock cause I showed up with 1 bag and about 200 bucks in cash prepared for the worst.

We'd never accuse any of our savvy readers of not knowing about checked bag charges, but the holidays are nothing if not an opportunity for amateurs to gunk up the works. So spread the word to your less-traveled friends before they fly home for Christmas: Carry on only, or be ready to pay up.

Related Stories:
· This Is the Place I Fly To So I Can Eat Sandwiches [Molls She Wrote]
· What Airline Employees Really Think of Your Luggage [Jaunted]
· What's To Be Done About The Baggage Scale Crouch Of Shame? [Jaunted]

Tags: Open Threads / Baggage / Luggage / Awful Trends / → All Tags

What's To Be Done About The Baggage Scale Crouch Of Shame?

Back in the days before pricey luggage fees and seemingly weekly airline bankruptcies, carriers didn't ever seem to charge for overweight bags. But we've recently heard about shady baggage scales from Tucson to St. Lucia, a disturbingly awful trend that can cost you at least $50 for every "overweight" suitcase you check.

Of course, the problem is that most hotel rooms don't come with scales--and even if they did, would you really be geeky enough to balance your Samsonite on there before heading to the airport?

In other words, the airlines have us by the rucksacks: If you're gonna check a bag, you have to trust the scale at check in. Overweight bags have led us to perform the dreaded crouch of shame more than once, digging through our dirty underwear in front of everyone, stuffing extras into our carry-on to lighten our checked load. But what's to be done about the hidden baggage scale scourge?

Do you have any tricks to determine which scales are bogus? Is one airline more guilty of shady scales than the others? And have you ever had to do your own crouch of shame? Let's commiserate in the comments.

Related Stories:
· More Airport Scales We Can't Trust [Jaunted]
· Baggage Scale Crisis Continues in Caribbean [Jaunted]
· Jaunted Open Threads [Jaunted]

[Photo: tttallis]

Tags: HOWTO / Packing Tips / Airline Fees / Baggage / Luggage / Skiing / → All Tags

How To Fly With Your Skis

Everyone, it seems, is hauling the skis out of the closet and trying to figure out how to get them to the mountain without paying a checked baggage charge. But unless you're paying for business or first class seats--which usually cover the cost of your bags--you're probably going to end up forking over some cash. But at least you have some options of who you'll be forking to:

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