Why rolling luggage is cool for travelers but a pain for airlines

Question: We noticed a few years ago that our luggage started coming down the baggage chute on its front instead of on its back. As the back usually has two long strips for protection and the front has nothing but zippers that get ripped off, it’s more wearing on the luggage. Now we have noticed that all carriers seem to deliver baggage this way. Why?

Kay Smith

Westminster

Answer: You know that rolling luggage that has made your life infinitely easier? Yeah, the bag that allows you to step smartly away from the baggage carousel without making a Skycap your BFF? That’s the culprit.

An airline rep, an airport executive and a marketing rep for a luggage company all agreed that two-wheeled luggage started this trend.

“We find that by placing the front side down on the conveyor, it keeps wheels off the conveyor and prevents falls,” said Charles Hobart, a representative for United.

Denis Carvill, deputy executive director of operations, maintenance and airline relations with the Burbank Bob Hope Airport, noted that wheels facing down tend to get caught in conveyor belts.

And “when a two-wheeled bag is on its back, it can sometimes take on a life of its own,” said Marcy Schackne, vice president of marketing for 24-7 International luggage, which includes such brands as Pathfinder and Andiamo. “The wheels engage with the flat/or uneven surface, and it will begin to roll, often out of control, and off the conveyor belt.

“This is particularly bad when the cruise lines are handling the bags, and they roll off into the water.”

Which raises a question about everybody’s new love interest — the spinner, the luggage with four wheels, instead of two, that roll along pretty effortlessly.

What’s not to love?

Plenty, according to people who prefer two-wheelers. Many of those are business travelers, said Schackne, who noted that across her brands, about 90% of the bags sold are spinners.

Spinners represent a “challenge” for baggage handlers, Hobart said. For one thing, you now have double the number of wheels that can break, meaning a bag with a busted wheel will be like a car with a flat tire.

A second sin: Some people think spinners are space hogs. Instead of trailing subserviently behind you, they are right by your side, which can make a crowded airport corridor an even bigger obstacle course.

Other people say a spinner also gives you less packable space because its wheels aren’t recessed; its packing compartment must be smaller so that it and the added length of the wheels don’t exceed many domestic airlines’ 22-inch-long carry-on dimension. (U.S. airline carry-ons typically must be no larger than 22 by 14 by 9, or 45 linear inches; airlines are increasingly strict about bags larger than that try to slip by.)

Some spinners’ greatest drawback: If you aren’t paying attention on an incline and you don’t have the handle in hand, it may take off on you. (Better brands of luggage often have a brake that can stop that; mine, of course, does not.)

For me, the big plus of a spinner is that it saves the backward tug of a two-wheeler, which, if the bag is heavy enough, can sometimes make it feel as though your arm will soon be leaving its socket. But I also haven’t tried my polycarbonate model four-wheeler on cobblestoned streets, which some travelers say aren’t built for spinners.

I also tend to check that spinner bag if time is not an issue and, thanks to airline co-branded credit cards, I usually don’t pay fees. If I use a carry-on bag, I use a 19-inch two-wheeler that’s light enough for me, a short person, to hoist into the overhead (smaller bag, less stuff crammed in).

Whatever bag you choose, know this one last bit of good news: Although airlines are collecting huge amounts of revenue for bags (nearly $1 billion in the first two quarters of 2015), there are many fewer incidences of mishandled luggage — about 2 million pieces in 2014, as opposed to nearly double that in 2007.

This may be one of those rare instances when the airlines deliver on their promise, even if it’s just a bag you’ve paid to take along for the ride.

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