Encounters with the TSA

In message , mrtravel
writes
Are you saying you don't have the ability to carry your laptop in your
hand without dropping it on the floor?

Yes, that's right. Remembering that that one has just flown 10 hours
cattle class, have stood for another hour at immigration, and have
irritable people pushing and shoving all around you.
--
Roland Perry

PTRAVEL wrote:
You can also use plastic trash bags for raincoats.

And you remove and dispose ot it as soon as you are inside your court
building. If anyone asks, just tell them the airline lost your umbrella. Or if
you are staying at a good business hotel, ask the concierge to lend you an umbrella.

You're confused about cellphone technology. It has nothing to do with the
ntetwork to which you subscribe. A tri-mode phone will roam in both digital
and analogue systems

That is bi-mode phone. (digital/analogue with only one digital technology).
Tri-mode would be a phone capable of GSM, TDMA and analogue. Verizon has CDMA
and analogue, that is bi-mode. Now, they also have 2 frequencies for digital
(850 and 1900).

If you are without battery charger, you simply disable the analogue mode. If
you are travelling from an airport to an hotel to a court, you're not going to
be spending that much time in the boon docks. At your hotel, you have your
room phone which you can use to make calls, and when you receive a call on
your mobile, you tell them them you'll call them back from another phone. This
way, your battery life is greatly extended on your mobile.

People are understanding creatures. Having to overburnden yourself 99% of the
time so that on the 1% of times when luggage is lost, you can continue totally
transparently isn't very smart in my opinion. You explain to people that
luggage was lost and they'll understand you have to phone them back from a landline.

Another incredibly naive statement. People survived before the advent of
computers, airplanes, automobiles, and calculators as well.

Well, if you want to use that logic, then I will ask you:

If you rely on SMS (sorry this may be new to you since you are on a US network
not using the world GSM standard), then your SMS service doesn't work in
analogue areas. What do you do if you can't receive an urgent SMS because
you're in an analogue area ?????? What will you do ?

If you go to a place without digital coverage, you tell your secretary not to
send you SMS messages and instead leave a message in your voicemail. You can
then manage by regularly checking your voicemail.

How about the suit that I need to wear to court? Should I show up in a polo
shirt and dockers?

That is why garment bags are generally accepted as hand luggage.

What do I tell my wife when the judge locks me up for
contempt?

That you'll sue the airline for losing your luggage causing you to lose your
job as a lawyer. If you explain to the judge the situation, he would be
absolutely silly to lock you up for contempt.

Only someone who doesn't travel for business could be this naive. Get a
job, try to earn a living, then go on the road and tell us how you do it.

Funny, I don't have such problems. I use my judgement to determine what I
absolutely need and what I don't need. And I take a few seconds to think about
"what if" scenarios to see what I would be able to do without, what I would be
able to replace etc. I don't have general rules, I deal with each trip separately.

And if you feel so much that you cannot live without your laptop, have you
considered the possibility of how you would handle a case of your laptop being
broken (sopftware or hardware) or stolen ?

Nope. Not only do you not travel for business but, apparently, you don't
travel at all. Luggage handlers will no re-route luggage because you wrote
"London" on the side.

You didn't read what I said. A handler loading a flight to paris seing a
luggage with a big "LONDON" sticker on it is more likely to seek out the tag
to ensure it does state CDG on it. If he sees LHR, then the handler will take
the luggage out and send it back to be sorted.

The last step in loading luggage is done by humans who assume the luggage has
been sorted properly. Putting the "LONDON" sticker doesn't garantee they will
spot a sorting error, but it increases their chances.


And in the USA, if you do not take the last flight of the day and your luggage
does miss its connection, it will travel on the next flight and you will get
it. Whether that luggage has your phone charger in it or not, you will still
have to deal with the airline, sign forms etc to have that luggage delivered
as soon as it arrives.


Handlers don't read anything but the baggage tag applied by the check-in
agent.

Wrong. Handlers at the last bit don't even read the tags. They just transfer
sorted lugagge from one bin to a container (or trolley in case of
non-containerised aircraft). You need to bring to their attention the
potential for a mistake for them to check the tag.

There are many things YOU can do without. You, however, don't travel for
business and, most likely, don't have a job at all, or, at least, the kind
of job that requires any standard of dress, performance and professionalism.

Throwing insults at me doesn't enhance your image.

And that is the stupidest thing you've said yet in this thread. Business
travelers rarely have many options about when they can travel.

But a smart person will look at the options and judge the flights. You can
alos look at predicted weather and an experienced traveller will have a good
idea of the odds of making the connection or not. You then pack accordingly.

Has it ever occured to you that a simple ziplok with a bit of detergent in it
would allow you to clean your shirt overnight if you didn't get your luggage ?
(and I suspect most hotels would provide you with some laundry detergent if
you asked the right folks). Has it ever occured to you that most hotels will
provide you with a ironing board and iron if you ask ? (and the really big
hotels will have overnight dry cleaning/ironing services).


Seems to me that you're the one who hasn't travelled much and doesn't have
much experience in dealing with lost luggage so you tend to bring everything
but the kitchen sink as carry on because you don't know how to handle a
situation where you lost your luggage.

PTRAVEL wrote:
"Stephen Harman" wrote:
PS try doing US security with a baby and a stroller that only fits through
some x ray machines.

There's an obvious answer, but that's another, and very old, thread.

Forego the stoller and ask a nearby business traveler to carry the baby
"just until we get on the plane"?

miguel
--
See the world from your web browser: http://travel.u.nu/

mrtravel wrote:
Are you saying you don't have the ability to carry your laptop in your
hand without dropping it on the floor?


One normally packs in such a way that one can walk, stand at check in counter
etc without fear of dropping items.

But when you prepage to go through security, you tend to "reconfigure" you
hand luggage, at which point, you hands may get quite busy with stuff and the
laptop is no longer such a sure thing.

I tend to agree with the idea of waiting until you reach the table before
taking laptop out.

Another potential problem is waiting for the tray to put your keys, change etc
into. One solution is to bring a ziplok bag with you and empty the contents in
the bag and then put the bag into your carryon. You can then walk way from the
checkpoint faster since you don't have to handled the coins/keys etc in the
small tray.

mrtravel wrote:
What is the big deal about carry it with you in the first place?
I don't see why there was an issue. They are small enough to fit in a
pocket. I usually carry mine in my laptop bag when traveling.

If you're allow X amounts of items as carry on, and you need X + 10, then you
need to choose which 10 will be in check luggage because you've exceeded what
is allowed as hand luggage. Obviously, if all your "important" items fit in
the hand luggage limits, there is no problem.

The discussion is really about which items you can and cannot live without for
a few days should your checked luggage not make it.

And about the guy who works 20 hour days and has no time to go shopping for
essentials etc. As long as you do have a piece of checked luggage that gets
lost, you will have to deal with the airline with regards to tracing the
luggage, having it delivered and finding out when it will arrive.

And if you're staying in a good enough hotel, you can talk to the concierge
about getting you a shaver, pens, paper etc. He'll deliver it to your room.
(heck, you may already have those in your minibar if you're willing to pay the price).


If something is *realy* *really* important, you can pack 2 copies in 2
separate suitcases. (in the USA, the standard is to allow 2 pieces as checked luggage).

What I find interesting is that the phobia of checking luggage seems to exist
only in the USA. Is the USA's record on checked luggage really much worse than
it is elsewhere ?

In message , Sleepy Racoon
writes

And about the guy who works 20 hour days and has no time to go shopping for
essentials etc. As long as you do have a piece of checked luggage that gets
lost, you will have to deal with the airline with regards to tracing the
luggage, having it delivered and finding out when it will arrive.

Which is even more of an incentive to have as little important material
as possible in the checked luggage. On a typical business trip, where
you are an hour from the airport on a one/two day trip, the only
sensible interface with the airline is when you are on your way home.

And if you're staying in a good enough hotel, you can talk to the concierge
about getting you a shaver, pens, paper etc. He'll deliver it to your room.

I've worked mainly for not-for-profit organisations, so hotel expenses
are a big issue.

(heck, you may already have those in your minibar if you're willing to
pay the price).

Never seen them.

What I find interesting is that the phobia of checking luggage seems to exist
only in the USA. Is the USA's record on checked luggage really much worse than
it is elsewhere ?

No, but I think that they have a higher impatience quotient. Waiting
half an hour for your bags isn't so bad once a year on an international
holiday, but several times a week when the plane is your local public
transport system would probably get tired very quickly.
--
Roland Perry

Sleepy Racoon wrote:
What I find interesting is that the phobia of checking luggage seems to
exist only in the USA. Is the USA's record on checked luggage really much
worse than it is elsewhere ?

US airlines are much more generous in luggage allotments than those in other
countries, so we've been able to let our phobia threshold sink lower than
most.

miguel
--
See the world from your web browser: http://travel.u.nu/

Sleepy Racoon wrote:
What I find interesting is that the phobia of checking luggage seems to
exist only in the USA. Is the USA's record on checked luggage really
much
worse than it is elsewhere ?

U.S. Airlines' started this nasty habit of letting passengers haul anything
and everything on board, hoping it would help them steal passengers from
other carriers who didn't let them haul as much. Hell, American Airlines
even put bigger overhead bins on their planes so people could haul even MORE
crap than the competition. Now that luggage is being scruitinized very
closely, it's a catch-22 since passengers have long since gotten used to
bringing a ****ing Volvo on board if they wanted to.

U.S. Airlines spoiled the hell out of passengers, now they don't know how to
turn back.

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , PTRAVEL
writes
The European airlines I've been on also have fairly strict weight
requirements.

Especially the "low cost" carriers.


May well be true as a general statement but I was surprised to note that BA
allowance is 6kg and Ryanair 7kg.

Roger

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , PTRAVEL
writes
For the OP to suggest that I should jeopardize my clients and my job to
suit
his conception of the appropriate way to travel is both arrogant and
ridiculous. It is obvious, though, that he doesn't do business travel
(or,
for that matter, any kind of travel) and, most likely, whatever job he
has
doesn't encompass having primary responsibility for anything.

I sympathise a lot with what you say. When I'm "power travelling" in
foreign parts, my day is typically 8am to 11pm (or later). Doing any
kind of shopping is entirely out of the question.

But what this proves is simply that different people have different
lifestyles, and projecting what's "right" or "sufficient" for one
lifestyle won't suit others.

I agree with you completely. If someone wants to travel light, or travel
with checked bags, more power to them. However, to assume that everyone can
is, to put it charitably, unrealistic.


There was a time when air travel was a convenience, which enabled the
power traveller to function more efficiently. Sadly, it's rapidly
becoming a distress purchase that "gets in the way".

In these troubled times, elite status and reliable upgrades to F are the
only way to salvation.

--
Roland Perry