I’ve been wanting to write this article for years because I hate trolleys. But hating them to the point of wanting to kick them every time I find them around, I have always given up on writing down my abstract thoughts on my visceral hatred for luggage on wheels.
Because I hate trolleys
But now an article in The Atlantic (The Carry-On-Baggage Bubble Is About to Pop) has reopened my mind, helping me to at least understand where does this visceral idiosyncrasy of mine for trolleys come from?.
Luggage on board?
Now, anyone who has flown even just a few times cannot fail to have been involved in those economy class fight scenes when packing away your luggage in the hat racks. Luggage that is too big, too bulky, too bulky and with all those gadgets like wheels and handles that there would be no need to bother Newton and the law of “Impenetrability of bodies” to understand that they will never, ever fit.
And then those trolleys too full and too big to be considered hand luggage – that is, the bare essentials for the flight, or for a day’s work away – where do they go? Exactly: under the seat. Which means that I can’t put my feet on it, that is, I can’t stretch my legs, that is, I travel badly. But bad bad bad. Just because you don’t want to board your air move in the hold paying the right price.
Planes, trains, subways: where trolleys wag their tails riotously
But it’s not just on planes, which would also be the least of it, net of the enormous waste of time and consequent flight delays. And the train, do we want to talk about it? Of those who they drag their enormous trolley into the corridor, getting stuck in each armrest to discover with a feigned naive air that no, their bulky luggage can only fit at the front of the carriage, together with the other bulky luggage?
Not to mention the metro, stations and airports where all these trolleys dragged by hand wag their tails like unruly dogs and tail like grumpy cars hitting the feet and ankles of all those unaware travelers who, yes, carry their luggage in their hands, slung over their shoulders. Here, more than ever, these are the moments in which more than in others I would make trolleys shine like buildings to be demolished with dynamite.
But when did all this start?
So, the question is: when exactly all this started? According to Ian Bogost it all began with the subprime crisis in 2007 and the ensuing “Great Recession” that began in 2008 and whose effects are felt beyond 2010, when travelers were given new incentives to join the aisle fray for overhead bin space.
“In the past, when you bought a plane ticket, a lot of things were included,” Laurie Garrow, a professor of civil engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology who specializes in air travel behavior, told me. “Then, after the 2008 financial crisis, the de-unification began.” Under pressure from rising fuel costs, competition from low-cost carriers and other factors, airlines separated standard perks, such as free checked baggage, into individual amenities, which travelers could purchase or decline . To avoid these additional costs, more and more people have chosen to carry hand luggage with them.
Interesting thesis, because indeed we are all well aware of how much impact having checked baggage on board has compared to the price of a plane ticket, low cost or not. But in my opinion that was only the second wave and it all started much earlier, just after the attacks of September 11, 2001.
With the world in panic in front of the images of the planes crashing into the World Trade Center, a whole series of security measures were introduced – from the ban on liquids to the control of PCs and tablets and even the body scanner – which now seem normal to us but which before that date were not.
Before it was different
Before September 11th Getting on the plane was all in all a quick procedure: you arrived at the airport, left your luggage at check-in, headed to the gate and boarded. End of the story. Now, you don’t necessarily have to have experienced it yourself the chaos of Heathrow, the kilometric queue of JFK (at least 2 hours from when you arrive at the airport to when you land at the security checks, and you still have a few km to get to the gate…), the rigidly Teutonic inflexibility of Frankfurt or the organized mess of Fiumicino to find out how much time is wasted at airports. And if on top of that I have to waste more time dropping off my luggage and then waiting at the conveyor belt for at least another good half hour after landing, it’s normal for people to want to take everything on board. And trolleys seemed to many, too many, almost everyone, to be the best solution. Better for them, but not for humanity. Because then, like the riots from the airports, they spread almost everywhere.
Trolleys are only apparently comfortable
Let’s tell the truth: trolleys are only apparently comfortable. They’re actually a real nuisance. For those who drag them and for those who find them around. If you’ve tried lugging one of these things on a traveling vacation, from one place to another, from one stairway to another, from a cobblestone street in the historic center of a city to a stony one in a seaside town, you understand a what am I referring to. I am unstable on any surface that is not as smooth as airport marble. Their boxy shape makes them difficult to store and handle. They tend to get stuck or deviate and to touch other travellers. Not to mention that noise they always make if their little wheels don’t roll on the polished marble of a hall. And when they aren’t rolling on the marble of a hall it means that they are collecting all the dirt that is around in our cities and then taking it to the overhead bins where we store our jackets.
Well, unless you really have some objective impediment to carrying a backpack or a duffel, the right thing you should do is carry with you exactly what you can fit in a bag or suitcase that you can hold by hand, lifting it off the ground and carrying it over his shoulder. And in spite of those like Soncini who maintain that “never check in your suitcase for any reason in the world, even if you are away for a month, even if they order you to do so“, take it on board.
READ ALSO:
10 reasons to buy a duffel bag
How to pack a light suitcase and fit everything in it
Photo by Gabrielle Henderson / JESHOOTS.COM / AYKUT AKTAŞ / Oleksandr Baiev
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2024-04-13 05:48:55
#Odio #trolley #SportOutdoor24
