Customers Become Increasingly Annoyed at Excess Baggage Penalties

Many travelers are becoming increasingly upset at having to pay excess charges having unknowingly breached weight allowances. For instance on the front of the ticket or confirmation it may say you are allowed a total weight allowance of 25 kilos but on the small print overleaf this is specified as 5 kilos for a carry on bag and 20 kilos for your hold luggage. Check in staff are now applying these charges to the letter and if for instance your hold luggage is 24 kilos and you have no carry on bag you will still be charged 4 kilos excess which can be as much as £15 per kilo despite being 1 kilo under the total weight limit..

This has lead to general dissatisfaction with the heavy -handed attitude being taken and the feeling that this myriad of allowances is purposely becoming more complex to trip up the unsuspecting traveler and is yet another source of income for the airline.

The low cost flyers in the UK in particular appear to have a complicated set of rules with different costs for the number of bags, single item weight allowance, carry on bag allowance and hold baggage allowance.

Taking the single weight allowance that is designed to cover one off bulky items such as bicycles, golf equipment, skis, diving equipment, hang gliding and surfboards. Whilst it is more than reasonable to expect to pay extra for these items a further charge may apply if you then breach the individual allowance for this item or an overall weight allowance. For example your total allowance is 50 kilos, of which you are allowed 32 kilos for your single item, this will only leave you with 18 kilos for carry and hold luggage which if you are going away for more than a week is not much. Another new development is not only have you to meet carry on allowances, the carry on bag must be able to fit in a purposefully designed cage and if unable to do so the bag emptied until it fits and any extra placed in a separate bag for which you will be charged at the additional bag rate. No wonder travelers are being caught out and becoming annoyed.

The airlines in their defense say that these allowances are clearly laid out on their web sites and are designed to streamline their booking procedure and it is the customers responsibility to make sure they comply. At the end of the day if these charges are to be avoided greater attention needs to paid to these rules by the traveling public but it still leaves one wondering why these rules are so complicated.