The Carry-On Curb : Fliers Find Sky’s No Longer the Limit Under New FAA Rules

They carried on guitars, violins and boom box stereos. They carried on purses and coats, umbrellas, sombreros and strollers; garment bags, duffels, backpacks, overnighters and briefcases.

They carried on skateboards, T-squares, baseball bats, video cameras, stuffed bears and bags from Banana Republic, Disneyland and Michigan State University bulging with Christmas presents and souvenirs.

But by and large the people boarding planes at LAX Saturday carried these items on two by two--two items per paying passenger--thereby complying with the new Federal Aviation Administration guidelines that went into effect Friday, the first of the year.

“It’s unbelievable,” said Lilia Borges, a passenger service agent with Delta Airlines. Flyers apparently have taken the widely publicized rules to heart, she said. “Nobody has anything extra.”

The sort of open rebellion that has greeted non-smoking policies on some airlines was nowhere to be seen.

The new rules require each airline to file a carry-on luggage plan that meets FAA approval, explained FAA spokesperson Jo Anne Sloane. Created in cooperation with the airline industry’s Air Transport Assn., the FAA’s new model guidelines generally limit passengers to hauling aboard two pieces of baggage, one no larger than 9x14x22 inches, which can be stowed under the seat, one item of 10x14x36 or less to be stuffed into the overhead bins or a piece no larger than 4x23x45 to be hung in cabin closets.

Each airline is required to post an employee to make sure that anyone trying to slip aboard with a pool table, tuba or other oversized parcel is stopped and their luggage checked and stored in the cargo hold before they get onto the plane. And flight attendants are required to make sure all carry-on luggage is stowed away before the plane’s doors are shut.

But the FAA gives the airlines leeway in creating their own plans, which many have modified to take into account the size of the plane, how fully booked the flight is, and whether there is room in the vertical storage compartments in the cabin, Sloane said.

The new guidelines were proposed last summer, in part because of complaints by the Assn. of Flight Attendants, which has long contended that excessive carry-on luggage makes air travel slower and less safe.

The International Airline Passengers’ Assn. agrees.

“It’s been chaos,” said Richard Livingston, director of technical operations for that organization, which claims 110,000 members worldwide.

“I understand a guy actually boarded a plane carrying a crankshaft . . . bowling balls have rolled out of overhead bins . . . an athlete carried on a javelin. Not only are these things missiles inside the airplane, but they impede escape paths,” he said, citing the 1977 on-ground collision of two 747’s in the Canary Islands that killed 541 people. “People who survived (that crash) said that one of the really big problems was trying to climb over the mounds and mounds of luggage to get to an exit before the plane was consumed by fire.

“Anything will be an improvement,” Livingston said of the new guidelines, adding that the passengers’ association is taking a “wait and see” approach. But he is skeptical that the airlines will be sufficiently strict in enforcing carry-on limits.

At LAX different airlines--and, in some cases, different gate attendants with the same airline--enforced different limits. Some allowed only one carry-on item onto heavily booked flights, and others permitted people to slip on with several parcels apiece.

In part, the discrepancies occurred because of the way exemptions are interpreted.

Personal items such as coats, hats, umbrellas, purses, cameras, and diaper bags aren’t counted into the two carry-on bag total, said Tim Neale, spokesman for the Air Transport Assn.

Stuffed animals usually aren’t either. But they can be. And what counts as a diaper bag? Some are about the size of a small steamer trunk.

“Briefcases count as carry-on luggage,” said Gary Corn, supervisor of passenger service for Delta. “But purses don’t. Some briefcases aren’t any bigger than purses. So you’ve got to make a judgment.”

Educating passengers about the new rules begins at curb-side, where sky caps try to persuade passengers to check all but the permitted number of bags, Corn said. Ticket sellers make a similar pitch.

But for the relatively few passengers who arrived at the gate on Saturday with more bags or bigger bags than the new rules allow--the people who wanted to take home several couch-sized paintings, for instance--airlines checked baggage right at the loading ramp, representatives said.

For those who are really fussy, the alternative is to do what television crews often do with their cameras and musicians often do with their cellos or French horns--buy them a seat.

Neale of the Air Transport Assn. will testify: “I personally saw a 3-foot-tall, 100-pound chocolate Easter bunny being sent first class to New York.”