Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
As of yesterday, 7 January 2008 The UK Department of Transport has finally lifted what I call an “unreasonable, irrational” one-piece hand baggage policy. Thus, reinstating the previous two-piece hand baggage allowance for all travelers departing and transferring through UK airports – London Gatwick/Jersey/Newquay airports are the exception – albeit a start for sure and a nice welcome for all our international transfers through Heathrow.
You remember the scene during those ugly Heathrow transfers especially when the policy first took effect. You board your international flight here or abroad comfortable with a two-piece hand baggage allowance. All is fine until you arrive at Heathrow to transfer for your domestic EU connecting flight – in our case via British Airways – where you then must be rescreened (despite arriving from a secure area in Terminal 4).
Once you arrive you transfer to Heathrow’s other terminals only to be re-screened again and told, “Sorry, M’am. There’s a new one-piece hand baggage allowance in effect.” Cabin class won’t help you here either. All First and Club World passengers must abide by the absurdity. Can you imagine? The chaos!
In my experience, I was among the luckier ones when the policy initially took effect. I once had both a carry-on half empty with room to spare, so I just inserted my hand-bag into the other. Viola! There my two bags turned into one. However, we did see too many occasions during our transfers through Heathrow, women in particular would be told of this new policy. That’s when even the calm, cool and collected would turn into screaming wraths of witches, a bit unsettling to witness. In several multi-lingual tongues we heard spewing curses to agents and security personnel. What a hideous policy it was. I have to agree. It wasn’t thoroughly desiminated well to the general public at least for passengers arriving from abroad and for many it meant missed flights/connections and worse discarding of bags and goods.
No matter, all is well for now. Of course, this applies only to passengers transferring on commercial carriers in the UK. Your private charter obviously foregoes these restrictions.
Back in the States, we are happy the restrictions were never quite as irrational.