I always enjoy reading stories of little triumphs over luggage allowances, so here’s mine.
Recently I was flying back from Bali to the UK via Singapore, on Air Singapore. My hold luggage limit was a generous 30kg, but being the proud owner of two big Subtronic flashguns and other weighty items, I found myself travelling with 34kg on the way out.
The check-in clerk at Heathrow (on my outbound flight) had ignored this and sent me on my way with a nice smile, but on the way back the weight of my two check-in bags had somehow crept up to 36kg according to the weighing machines at Denpasar Airport. The young lady at the desk told me that I would have to pay $50 per kilo – $300 total. Not going to happen, obviously, so I would be leaving some of my belongings in beautiful Bali.
Well, I did the math, and worked out that my ancient Mares fins probably represented the heaviest objects with the least value, so I took them out of my kitbag, but kept the straps, as they weighed little and would be of use as spares. That took me down 3kg, but my by-the-book friend at the counter still wasn’t happy, so I removed a little bag in which I stow my t-shirts, and that brought me down another 2kg. Madam Check-in pursed her lips and made a telephone call to some unseen superior, who generously allowed me through with 31kg of hold luggage.
My spirits were low as I ambled towards the rubbish bin; I grow attached to dive kit, and those fins had served me well, scratched and discoloured though they were. I wasn’t too happy about throwing away my manky old t-shirts, either. But then, a spirit of rebellion welled deep within: I would beat these guys at their own game. I took out every item of my hand luggage and re-arranged it with the meticulous care of an OCD sufferer in overdrive, so that every tiny space between the various lenses and camera bodies was occupied with the clothing I had been forced to remove from my hold luggage.
Ferreting around some discarded packaging behind the check-in queue, I found some lengths of string, and used them to tie my fins to my hand-luggage roller bag. You see lots of young mothers getting away with carrying sizeable kiddie accessories by crudely attaching them to their hand luggage, so I hoped the same principle would hold for me.
Anyway, I negotiated the various gates, security points and passenger queues and no one gave me a second glance. In the departure lounge, I scrounged a big duty-free bag from a designer clothes shop, and put my scanky old fins inside. As we all know, the airport authorities love it when you buy loads of duty-free, so no-one questioned my bulging bag either in Denpasar or later as I dashed through Singapore Airport to get my connecting flight back to the UK.
The moral of the story? If you do fall foul of the check-in goblins, keep your nerve, work out what you can afford to lose, and then take it through anyway!
