The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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11:34am on Friday, 27th October, 2006:
Comment
I'm off to Washington DC for a meeting this Sunday. It's only in Washington
because there's a conference
going on there that some of the other participants are at already — I'm not
consulting for some US government agency or anything. Although the meeting is on
Sunday, it'll take me Saturday to get there and (because of time differences)
Monday and 25% of Tuesday to get back.
As I'm only there for one day, I
really don't want to take hold luggage. Hand luggage is all I need. However,
what with recent reports of people wanting to blow up aeroplanes using, oh,
coins, snuff, tulips, elastic bands, the air that we breathe and human hair, I
wasn't sure whether or not hand luggage was still allowed if it was bigger than
your hand. I consulted thelatest security information and learned that hand
luggage is OK if it fits in a box 56cmx45cmx25cm. The bag I was planning to use
is close on the 25cm but well within range on the other two. I'd link you to the
security page to show you but it uses a session ID and won't work if I strip it
out.
Poor web site design aside, this seems fair enough: being able to
fit your bag in a box of fixed dimensions seems an eminently sensible way of
ensuring that all hand luggage can be tested quickly and easily.
Hmm,
"eminently sensible" ... maybe I'd better check what the US authorities do, too,
just in case...
OK, so I had a look at US regulations and they are indeed
different, although the same in the sense that they too use session IDs that
won't work if I strip them out. For flights within the USA, hand luggage is
treated using the concept of "dimensional inches": you add up the height, width
and depth of your bag and if the total comes to more than 45 inches (114cm) you
have to put it in the hold. For international flights, the same rule applies
in addition to the 56cmx45cmx25cm rule. Given that 56+45+25=126, this
means your luggage could be OK flying to the USA from the UK but be too big to
come back. It also means they can't use a "put it in the box" approach for
measurement, because it could fit in the box and still be illegal.
This
isn't to say the UK is in all ways superior. When we went to Italy for our
holidays, I took the same bag and they asked me to put it into a box to show it
was within carry-on limits. The box was in 3D landscape format, in that the
width was greater than the height which was greater than the depth. I stood my
bag up in it and it fitted fine. However, the bag was in portrait format, its
height being greater than its width which was greater than its depth. The
official made me take it out and lie it down on its side, as if it might not fit
that way. I complied, as in my experience little good comes of calling
officials stupid to their faces. I still got a look of, "OK, well I'll let you
through this time, but don't try that again" from her, though.
I
expect queues...
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Copyright © 2006 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).