Potential Luggage Problem on Small Jets

[bflowngs]

When booking your flights, you may end up on a small 40 passenger commuter jet. You need to consider that they can only take so much luggage,and if there are a lot of cruisers on board, they can go over their limit.

 

Two years ago, we had a direct morning flight to our cruise destination on a small jet. The cruise was later in the afternoon. Some of our luggage never got on board the plane, as it was over the limit. Our luggage had to catch up with us two days later!!

 

 

This is why I like to avoid these planes if at all possible. I also never chance getting to my port the day of embarkation.

 

You also want to make sure you put the ship's luggage tag on your luggage before you get on the plane. That way,if you run into problems, the airline and cruiseline can identify your luggage quicker.

[Bill S]

We encountered the very same problem a few years ago after a connecting flight from Seattle to Vancouver. Too many cruisers and not enough space/payload for all the luggage. Luckily, ours caught up to us at our Vancouver hotel the next morning, before embarkation. We do not put our cruise tags on our bags until embarkation day, but we ensured that the airline knew where we were staying for the night, boy did we make sure! :)

Lessons learned or reinforced: fly in a day early and take at least a change of underwear and toiletries in the carry-ons!!!

[FlyerTalker]

Another consideration is the shape of your luggage. Duffles and soft sided bags have a greater likelihood of travelling than hard-sided and larger pieces. It becomes easier to load the former in smaller cargo holds - so if ground handlers have to make a choice, the big, bulky items tend to go later.

 

FWIW, all flights between Seattle (SEA) and Vancouver (YVR) are in turboprop aircraft. So be aware that you run this risk.

[JJPNYC]

Just a clarification I want to through out.

 

There are 2 types of "commuter" aircraft current in service:

1.) turboprops - these are the ones with propellers. These are VERY weight sensitive aircraft and from my experience these are the ones where luggage may be left off and ones where airlines are very mindful of the total weight of the aircraft, including passenger weight & how weight is distributed within the cabin

 

2.) regional jets - these are the ones with the jet-engines mouted in the back ala a MD-80 or Boeing 717. As these are jet-engine powered, these, in my experience, don't have the weight limitations of the turbo props.

 

So take a look as to specifically what type of commuter aircraft you're on as they are not all created equal!

[FlyerTalker]

2.) regional jets - these are the ones with the jet-engines mouted in the back ala a MD-80 or Boeing 717. As these are jet-engine powered, these, in my experience, don't have the weight limitations of the turbo props.

 

Granted that RJ's have greater lifting capabilities for cargo weight -- however, they are still quite limited in terms of cargo volume. From the DL website, we can see that a CRJ 100 or 200 has 314 cubic feet of cargo area for 50 pax. Contrast this with a 757 which has 1785 cubic feet for 183 pax. So there are still issues with RJ cargo capacity if the load is mostly large and bulky bags.

[Lsimon]

2.) regional jets - these are the ones with the jet-engines mouted in the back ala a MD-80 or Boeing 717. As these are jet-engine powered, these, in my experience, don't have the weight limitations of the turbo props.

 

We recently went on a non-cruise trip that involved commuter flights into two cities, same airline. First was a turboprop - had the usual luggage limitations. Second was a regional jet from Key West - limit was ONE suitcase. Our second case went "standby". fortunately the plane wasn't full and all our luggage arrived the same time we did.

[DanJ]

The problem with the regional jets, same as the Dash 8-type turboprops, is they don't have under the floor cargo space like bigger jets. The space in the tail isn't very big as flyertalker says.

 

My neighbour is in the reserves. Last summer he and 20 or so others from our area had to fly to New Brunswick for manoevers. They got on the CRJ in Toronto, not really thinking anything about how little luggage these things can carry. The arrive in Fredericton, and not one of them has their big green army sack. Air Canada sent them on other Airbus and Boeing jets to Halifax and trucked it all up the next day (about a 4 hour drive).

[janetz]

My daughter flew USAIR in December..Her connection,( that turned into a 7 hour layover in Charlette) they used MESSA, and her one piece of luggage did not get on. They said they did not have room for everyone's luggage! She id get the bag 18 hours after she landed..:rolleyes:

[FlyerTalker]

Mesa is a large regional carrier that contracts with several airlines to provide commuter service to smaller airports. Again, the issue is one of the aircraft size, not the provider.

[jaxon41]

wow, just one more thing to be concerned about.

[FlyerTalker]

Forewarned is forearmed. Better to worry in advance than suffer in the end.

[wrp96]

Just flew through DFW this weekend, not only were they pulling luggage off of flights (and not just the props and regional jets) they were also pulling people off. The weather was soo bad coming out of DFW that they were adding extra fuel to flights just in case they needed to go to alternate airports. As a result they were putting weight restrictions on almost all flights and pulling people off of planes. At my hotel on Sunday night (I had volunteered coming out of San Juan and knew I would be spending the night in Dallas) I had people eyeing my carry on bag as I was one of the few people that actually had toiletries and a change of clothes.