Size of carry-on luggage under scrutiny at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport over weekend
Campaign by airport officials brings sharp comments from passengers
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A special campaign, the aim of which is to remind people of the maximum permissible amount of carry-on luggage, started at the Helsinki-Vantaa International Airport on Wednesday. During the campaign - which will continue until Sunday - the airport officials have been advised to pay special attention to the size, weight, and number of carry-on bags that passengers want to take into the cabin. The campaign has taken some passengers by surprise.
“These are the kind of items that cannot be placed in the luggage compartment”, passenger Martta Seppälä explains agitatedly to the customer service officer Merja Front at Helsinki-Vantaa International Airport.
Seppälä, who is on her way to New York, where she works, has just been informed that she has got too much carry-on luggage.
Seppälä’s protest falls on deaf ears. She has no option but to leave one of her planned carry-on packages with the boarding gate officials, who then rush to ensure that it will make its way into the luggage compartment of Seppälä’s plane.
“I am afraid something may get broken or disappear. It is not nice to rummage through your luggage in front of everybody”, Seppälä mutters as she reorganises her carry-on bag.
Seppälä expresses astonishment that the check-in officials failed to mention anything about the campaign. “It would have been so much easier to reorganise my bags there rather than here at the gate.”
Accumulation of luggage in the cabin is a security risk, but also a comfort issue.
Finnair complains that on some of its flights there is more luggage in the cabin than there is in the actual luggage compartment.
“At worst, a flight can be delayed when excess luggage has to be moved from the cabin into the cargo compartment. A couple of times it has happened that all bags have not fitted in there either”, informs Marko Haaksiala from Finnair.
“During the campaign we will weigh all the biggest suitcases. With the suitcase weight, there is room for flexibility if the plane is half empty”, Haaksiala promises.
Passenger Kari-Pekka Korhonen agrees that the campaign is relevant. “The departures run late when people have too much stuff”, he says.
According to Front, the most common explanation for an additional carry-on bag is that it contains something breakable.
Sometimes the officials have had to remove large items as well. One passenger wanted to fly from New York to St. Petersburg with a large plasma-screen television. “We could not allow that”, Haaksiala laughs.
This time the boarding of the New York flight goes ahead with little drama. Only four small carry-on bags are removed from 275 passengers, to be placed in the cargo hold instead.
In the economy class on Finnair’s scheduled flights, a passenger is allowed one carry-on bag with a maximum weight of eight kilograms and dimensions not exceeding 55 x 40 x 20 centimetres.
Travellers in business class are allowed two carry-on bags with a combined maximum weight of ten kilograms.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 26.5.2006 - TODAY |
 Size of carry-on luggage under scrutiny at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport over weekend |
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