Airport Baggage Thieves Bagged

[bkkjames]

Regarding the weighing of hand luggage: There are 3 reasons I can think of for airlines to do so;

1. Revenue. Overweight hand luggage reduces the weight of checked bags which might otherwise attract excess baggage charges.

2. On full flights, cabin stowage space is limited so inconsiderate passengers that have large, heavy hand lugagge can cause problems for others.

3. Safety. Aircraft overhead bins have design weigh limitations. In turbulence or a heavy landing, bins can and do fail causing injury to passengers.

If you're looking for someone to blame when your overweight hand luggage is taken and loaded below, look in the mirror.

Yes and no. I travel with my lap top and my valuables. It fits into my messenger style bag and the thing usually exceeds 10kg. I am  always below my checked bag allowance. How the heck do you expect me to transport my laptop, phones and other stuff they tell me not to check? It's a <deleted> catch 22. I understand why people check phones. I have a phone for North America, a phone for Thailand, and until recently a phone for  the EU. Try transiting in some airports with  lots of electronics and you can jam a security line or be taken aside for  a check. I have the drill down pat now, liquids in my plastic bag,  laptop pulled for seperate scanning and phones in the outside pocket, but more often than not, my coins,  lots of wires and AA / AAA batteries can cause the  security to think I  have bullets.

Maybe it was your attire mate?   (see avatar)

[zthyadat]

Anyone who leaves an iphone in a checked bag deserves to have it stolen....duh.

That is just stupid. Anyone who pays a couple of hundred dollars for a flight deserves to have their belongings protected by the company paid to take care of them. It is this attitude towards corruption - it is the victim's fault - that perpetuates the belief that it is perfectly okay. I suppose you believe that any woman who wears short pants on the streets after midnight deserves to be raped as well? Mustn't tempt others to commit crimes...

[zthyadat]

There's another angle to consider.

If it's that easy for the thieves to quickly take things from checked in luggage then it's also very easy for them to deposit things into the luggage, e.g. small bombs etc.

Just wonder how well this angle is covered in the security systems, at all airports worldwide?

The bomb security thing is just a joke anyway. Belly cargo - which is commercial cargo that does not belong to the passengers - make up the bulk of the load a commercial aircraft carries and as it is lucrative, it keeps the price of passenger tickets down. But only a very small percentage of the belly cargo is checked.

The security measures inflicted upon passengers is just smoke and mirrors - ineffective against any terrorist with half a brain, who would just ship their bombs as commercial cargo.