Fewer bags overhead! But more staring at the carousel

IN the month since a foiled jet-bombing plot in Britain set off another round of rule changes, Americans once again have proved to be the ultimate Flexible Flyers.

Like those classic sleds, we navigate bumps and hairpin turns and plow on.

Can’t take liquids or gels into the cabin? No problem. Half of Americans say they’ll toss them into checked bags, a fourth will buy them on arrival and 8% will just do without, according to an Aug. 25 survey by TNS Travel & Transport, a global research company with offices in New York.

Only 2% said they had canceled travel plans because of the new rules or the threat of terrorism.

But the strictures, imposed Aug. 10 by the Transportation Security Administration, have altered flying in other, unexpected ways: We’re checking more bags and, as a result, have fewer carry-ons, which is having far-reaching consequences.

Planes board faster, airlines and flight attendants say, because fewer bag-toting customers clog aisles. On the other end, some passengers report longer waits at baggage carousels as staffers scramble to handle greater loads.

I spoke with those on the front lines -- flight attendants and baggage handlers -- about the effect of those changes.

“These new restrictions are definitely making the boarding go much more smoothly and efficiently,” said Corey Caldwell, spokeswoman for the Assn. of Flight Attendants in Washington, D.C., which represents more than 55,000 attendants at 20 airlines. Caldwell credited fewer carry-on bags. The drop, in some cases, has been dramatic.

Thom McDaniel, who heads Local 556 of the Transport Workers Union of America at Love Field in Dallas, which represents Southwest Airlines flight attendants, said that on recent flights, “we had overhead bins that were completely empty.”

On Aug. 28 and 29, when he flew eight legs in the East and South, McDaniel didn’t have to order a single carry-on bag to be checked at the gate.

That’s remarkable, he said, because “usually, by the time the plane is three-quarters full, there’s no bin space.” During the busy summer season, he is accustomed to checking 20 bags or more per plane at the gate.

Now boarding and unboarding are “noticeably faster,” McDaniel said.

United and American airlines have also been seeing fewer carry-ons and faster boarding times, their representatives say, although neither could quantify the change.

Caldwell, of the flight attendants group, said she hoped the trend would reduce injuries to her colleagues, who wrangle bags in the cabin, and to passengers hit by shifting or falling objects. In the past, the union has said, thousands of such injuries have occurred each year.

Caldwell also hopes for better on-time performance.

In fact, only 19% of flights, on average, were late from Aug. 11 to 27 compared with 22% from Aug. 1 to 9 at the 30 biggest North American airports tracked by www.flightstats.com, which provides real-time and historic data on flight performance.

But last year’s figures for those dates showed a similar difference, said FlightStats spokeswoman Meara McLaughlin. So whether quicker boarding caused this year’s decrease is debatable.

“It’s not changing the big picture,” said Tim Smith, an American Airlines spokesman. “On-time performance is still more affected by weather, air-traffic control and arrival of inbound aircraft.”

At any rate, he said, time gained from speedier cabin boarding may be lost to delays in handling more checked bags. Those numbers are “up slightly,” Smith said; at one big airport, the rate increased 9%, from 1.1 to 1.2 bags checked per passenger. He had no system-wide figures.

But baggage handlers reported far larger increases in their workloads: 20% or more at some airports. That, they said, is taking a toll on workers.

“It’s frustrating for our workers on the ramp,” said Lance Price, vice president of Local 502 of the Transport Workers Union, which represents American Airlines’ fleet-service clerks (baggage handlers) and aircraft fuelers at LAX. “They’re getting hurt and getting burned out.”

Although the frequency of injuries has not increased since Aug. 10, Price said, the injuries are more severe, involving more time off work.

“There is a lot of overtime being offered,” he said.

Price said his members had been handling about 30% more bags since the rule changes.

“It went up immediately,” he said, “and it’s stayed consistent.”

The new TSA rules affect workers in other ways too.

At Dallas/Fort Worth and some other airports, baggage handlers go through the same security portals as passengers and are subject to the liquids ban, said Mark Nelson, president of Local 513 of the Transport Workers Union, which represents fleet-service clerks and other airport workers in Texas.

“There are more hoops you have to go through just to get to work,” he said.

Not everyone agrees that these issues have delayed the processing of checked bags.

Despite the added load, Price said, wait times at American’s baggage carousels at LAX haven’t seen a “huge increase.”

He thinks some fliers’ complaints may be more perception than reality.

Travelers who regularly check bags, Price said, know what to expect. At LAX, he said, bags typically start popping onto American’s carousels about 20 to 25 minutes after the flight lands and the hatch opens.

But people checking bags for the first time may be surprised by the delay or just annoyed at the whole idea.

“Before they even get on the plane,” Price said, “they complain about having to wait for their bags.”

At some Texas airports, however, fliers are in fact left to linger longer at baggage carousels, Nelson said. At Dallas/Fort Worth, “it’s taking a while for customers to get their bags,” Nelson said. “The complaints are starting to go up.”

The airport in Austin, Texas, is “by far the worst” among the six handled by Local 513, he said, with wait times of 40 or 45 minutes, which he attributed to the load and the lack of manpower.

There may be some relief on the way.

Nelson said that since a big increase in checked bags on Aug. 10 and 11, “it’s calmed down somewhat.”

He estimated the local’s workload lately has been 20% greater than before Aug. 10, which translates into 20 or 25 more bags per Super 80 jet versus 50 or 60 more in those first two days.

Once again, Nelson suspects, fliers are learning new rules, refiguring how to pack and adapting to the new normal -- just as we did after the Sept. 11 attacks five years ago.

*

Jane Engle welcomes comments and questions at jane.engle@latimes.com. Or write to Travel Insider, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A., CA 90012; travel@latimes.com.