The Curious Case of the Overweight Carryon

A short story by R.M. Dolin

The Curious Case of the Overweight Carryon

I’m a frequent traveler who’s still as equally excited for every trip as I am amazed at the bizarrely unexpected ways adventure reminds me how food and language are not the only differences between countries and cultures. My steadfast rule when caught in an unexpected mishap is to enjoy the moment while realizing the person on the other end speaking in a language I barely understand, is also trying to make the best out of whatever unfortunate situation we’re involved in. Another lesson I’ve learned from years of booking my own travel is that the shortest distance between two points is often not the least expensive and diversions lead to adventures; my recent trip to Ireland and France is a case in point.

I tend to fly American Airlines when possible because my experience is they offer the lowest fares and best service. I also appreciate the way they handle the unfortunate and uncomfortable things that can conflict with a pleasant journey, such as lost or damaged luggage, or delays impacting connections. I times of personal crisis their gate agents and customer care representatives are pleasant and helpful even though the fact I’m engaging them means something has gone wrong and they’re probably having a far much more stressful day than me.

Here’s a tip to help you through you’re next travel interruptus meltdown; if you take a moment away from your frustrated anger to tell the airline person helping you how much you admire the successful way they’re managing stress, they’ll be so appreciative that it leaves you feeling like you’ve positively impacted someone’s otherwise bad day and that helps you put your shit-filled crisis into perspective. And of course, I like to assume that Karma repays my small act of kindness with a little extra effort in resolving whatever issue I’m dealing with.

Note 1: if you remember all the way back to your high school literature class, this build up is what we writers call foreshadowing.

So, my buddies and I decided to have our annual motorcycle adventure in Ireland this year. We waited until early September because last year Italy in August was too damn hot and according to weather experts, September is Ireland’s dry month. Since we camp along the way, staying dry is a high priority consideration. However, as one of my campground hosts pointed out after riding three days in rain, “lucky you didn’t come last month when it rained very day.” Rain aside, Ireland in September is simply amazing, and what’s an adventure without some suffering.

Whenever I find myself in Europe, I try to spend time in Paris, not only for obvious reasons, but because I have friends who work in Michelin star restaurants or who I met on previous bicycle tours or at engineering conferences over the years. When planning for this trip, I could either fly to Paris for a week and then on to Dublin for ten days or reverse course. It didn’t seem to matter if I went to Paris then Dublin, or Dublin then Paris, the price was just over three thousand dollars for a multi-stop ticket on all the airlines.

Another travel tip that works well in Europe is to book a round trip from the US to one of your destinations and once in country, use domestic carriers to move about Europe. In this case I could fly round trip from Albuquerque to Paris, or Albuquerque to Dublin and take Air France for the Dublin-Paris leg. My preference was to fly to Paris first for friends and food, and then on to Dublin for the motorcycle adventure; better to start fresh and clean end worn and grubby. However, where you fly significantly impacts costs, and the cost to fly round trip from Albuquerque to Paris in September was thirty-one-hundred dollars while the cost to fly from Albuquerque to Dublin was only eight-hundred dollars.

Once in Ireland, the cost to fly round trip from Dublin to Paris on Air France would be an additional three-hundred dollars. This means that by flying from Albuquerque to Dublin on American Airlines and then flying from Dublin to Paris on Air France, the overall cost would be $1,100, which is a net savings of $2,000 over the cost of booking the entire trip on one airline. So, my itinerary was set, ten days in Ireland riding along the famed “Wild Atlantic Way,” and then a week in France for food, fun, and whatever else one does in Paris.

Note 2: See note 1.

My buddies and I decided on Ireland’s “Wild Atlantic Way,” because it’s a scenic route that can if you allow the narrow-unmarked roads to crisscross your way through the rural southwest coast. And true to everything I’ve read and been told, this part of Ireland is in fact inhabited by the world’s friendliest people; if you’re in a Pub more than three minutes and not deeply engaged with someone about something while sharing a pint it can only mean you’ve been camping too long in the same clothes.

After a week of riding roads barely wide enough for one smart car on the Royal Enfield Himalayan adventure bikes we rented in Limerick, camping along the way, and eating all our meals in pubs, my buddies flew back to Albuquerque while I headed off to Paris. Because we were camping and riding motorcycles, I was carrying a lot of stuff; for example, there’s the cycling gear (helmet, jacket, pants, boots, and of course a rainsuit), the camping gear (tent, sleeping bag, ground pad, etc.), and let’s not forget nice clothes for a week in France. All that gear required a large dry bag (think waterproof duffel bag) that I could carry behind me on the bike, a carryon helmet bag large enough for my helmet and other gear but small enough to fit into the overhead, and a backpack for necessary travel items (laptop, chargers, battery packs, documents, etc.), that could fit under the seat in front of me. While my Platinum status on American Airlines allows me two free checked bags, I chose to carry on my helmet bag remembering how my luggage was smashed to pieces in London in January and lost for five days in Key West in April.

My pre-trip strategy seemed flawless, right down to the Excel spreadsheet itemizing things to pack in each bag. As a frequent American Airlines traveler, I know the size and weight restrictions of checked bags and the size restrictions of carryon bags. I wasn’t too worried about the weight of my checked dry bag because usually ticket agents forgive small transgressions. On the flight from Dublin to Paris, however, I’d be flying Air France, and was unsure of their size requirements for carry-ons so, I visited the Air France website to make sure my helmet bag met their size requirements and was pleasantly surprised to learn they allow larger carryon bags than American Airlines. As someone who usually travels by the proverbial seat of my pants, I felt rather proud for having the foresight to ensure I would avoid any issues with oversized carry-ons that I’d have to check for whatever fee Air France would assess.

My flight from Albuquerque to Dublin was flawless, so props to American Airlines, and likewise, my flight from Dublin to Paris was equally flawless, so props to Air France. I greatly appreciated that at both the Dublin and Paris airports they provide courtesy luggage carts, which was important as all my bags had to be carried and they were heavy. American airports charge for luggage carts, because. . .well because that’s how capitalism works. Having a luggage cart meant I could effortlessly collect my bags in the Paris airport, journey the arduous way to immigration control and then on to customs before the long trek through the large Charles de Gaul airport to connect with the Metro train that would take me into Paris.

On this trip I stayed in Versailles, which has become a suburb of Paris. When you factor in having to arrive at the Dublin airport two hours before departure and combine that with the one-and-a-half hour flight, plus the one plus hours to get through immigration and customs, plus and the one-and-a-half hour metro ride to Versailles, the entire trip only took six hours with one time change, which got me to Versailles around three in the afternoon relaxed and ready for food, friends, and whatever other possibilities await one in France.

After a wonderful week in France that included a picnic at the Versailles palace, a bike ride around the forests of Barbizon, a walk through the village where Jean Cocteau lived, and several insightful conversations with bicycle shop owners about the best bicycle to ride in the Paris-Roubaix race I’m signed up for next April along the famed cobblestone course that is euphemistically called “The Hell of the North,” it was time to go home. The return trip was going to be a bit painful, starting in Versailles at six in the morning, arriving in Dublin at 11:00am, leaving Dublin at three in the afternoon and arriving in Dallas at 7:00pm. From there I would hop a flight to Albuquerque at 9:00pm arriving at ten. Then, I’d collect my bags, get to my truck, and start my two-hour drive north to Los Alamos, hopefully getting home by 1:00 am. From start to finish this trip would take twenty-seven hours, so as I left Versailles, my hope, and even my expectation, was that everything would go smooth while recognizing all the critical points where the potentially things could go south quickly and unexpectedly.

Usually when traveling in or out of France, things go slow but smooth at the airport, it’s the Metro ride that’s stressful, if a Metro line necessary to reach your destination isn’t shut down for the latest worker’s strike, a required transfer station is closed for maintenance or some such nonsense. But not on this trip, today things went surprisingly smooth, and I arrive at the Paris Charles de Gaulle airport at 7:30, a full two and half hours before departure, which means I can causally make my way from the Metro stop to the international terminal and through the airport check-in process leaving plenty of time to get through security and maybe even hit the lounge for breakfast before departure.

If you’ve ever been through the Paris Charles de Gaulle airport, you already appreciate it must have been designed by the nephew of some former Prime Minister because no competent architect could have had any part of it; at least they finally upgraded the inter-terminal bus shuttles with a modern and efficient train system. Even still, traveling through Paris CDG requires time, patents, and a lot of walking. My French friends avoid CDG as if it was infested with bedbugs as there are two other nearby options for European destinations. Having traveled most of the world, I can unequivocally say the Paris CDG airport is the most poorly conceived and inefficient airport in the world.

But I’m not concerned about airport optimization as I exit the Metro at Terminal 2 and make my way along the long corridor toward check in, I know what to expect and due to the lack of any worker’s strikes, I have a two-and-a-half-hour window and the airport’s relatively calm for a Friday morning. All in all, my twenty-seven-hour journey home’s off to a fantastic start with everything smoothly proceeding as planned; so fantastic in fact you just got to know it’s gonna turn to shit at some point because that’s how the world works. The unknown unknown is when and where will my rosy day lose its luster?

The good news is that I don’t languish long to find an answer, the bad news is it’s something I didn’t see coming and my Excel strategy spreadsheet didn’t account for. Although, if you travel for the thrill of experiencing local culture, what’s about to happen presents France as only the French can facilitate; an aspect of European travel not mentioned in tour brochures or parodied in Hollywood romcoms. That being said, “in chaos there is opportunity,” and I’m about to have a ridiculously sublime opportunity to adventure through the French passion for rules and regulations; regardless of how silly and illogical they are.

After patiently waiting in the Air France ticket line for only fifteen minutes to check my dry bag to Dublin and obtain necessary boarding passes, I’m told to proceed all the way down the terminal until I reach the airport pharmacy, that’s where people are queuing up to pass through immigration control. Since this is the funnel point for all departing airport passengers, the multiple lines are a good twenty minutes long. I’m patiently waiting in line with my helmet bag and backpack, pleasantly chatting up two British women on their way to Africa as relief workers, when an Air France representative taps me on the shoulder and directs me to a special Air France passenger line where, as best as I can tell, they’re weighing passengers.

At first, I thought, “try that in the good old US of A, but then realize it wasn’t the passengers they’re weighing, it’s the combined weight of their carryon bags. I begin to realize that my decision not to put the French chocolate bars I was bringing home for my kids or the several kilograms of exotic fromage (i.e., cheese) I was bringing home for me in my checked dry bag was a significant miscalculation. In all my travels through many of the world’s airports, I have often been asked to demonstrate that my carryon bags can fit in whatever metal cage they constructed to enforce size restrictions, but I’ve never been asked to weigh my carry-ons. As I wait my turn at the scales of fate, I can’t help but marvel at the illogical unfairness of this; I mean my one-hundred-and-sixty-pound body plus whatever I’m carrying easily weighs less than the obese two-seater in front of me without his carry-ons.

While not knowing what the weight limit is, I’m pretty sure I’ll be over so consider stepping out of line to wolf down chocolate and cheese. However, I quickly and correctly realize I can’t eat enough to make a difference. I start looking around for someone traveling light who might be willing to carry my chocolate and cheese but remember the first question they ask at airport security is if all the items in your possession are yours, and don’t want my food confiscated by the French police. Before I can come up with a plan, it’s my turn at the scales and by then I’m starting to get defiant with a strong conviction that I should not have to surrender my chocolate and cheese while Mr Two-Seater gets a pass, especially since there simply isn’t anything back home of this quality.

Like a welterweight boxer praying to make weight before a prize fight, I tentatively place my helmet bag and backpack on the scale in some bizarre belief that gently loading the scale impacts the weight measurement, even though I’m already resigned to the fact that things were not going to end well for me. I can’t help but laugh at the irony of my predicament, my checked bag was three kilograms (approximately six pounds) underweight and could certainly have taken on more load. All I can do now is cross my fingers and hope my carry-ons are equally underweight.

Sadly though, no such luck, my combined helmet bag and backpack weight is 14kgs, which apparently is two kilograms over the limit, or approximately four pounds. Abruptly I’m ordered to exit the line by the Air France agent. I offer to remedy the situation there in some manner I’ve yet to discern but am instead told I have to return to the ticket counter and check one of my bags. Apparently, the rule is passengers are not allowed to lighten their load once they are found to be in violation. I mean how does he know I’m not traveling with a partner who’s underweight who I can transfer my chocolate and cheese to. But no, the rule is you have to return to the ticket counter, so, against useful logic, after investing twenty minutes in the que they send me all the way back to the check-in area where I once again que up in the fifteen-minute check-in line.

Once I finally matriculate to the counter and present the tag of shame I was given by the Air France agent who weight my carry-ons, a very pleasant airline agent with a beautiful French accent politely informs me that Air France is happy to check one of my bags to Dublin, which will reduce my combined carry-on weight to well below the limit. While feeling I have no alternative but to comply, I’m reluctant to check my helmet bag for obvious reasons, it has my expensive motorcycle helmet inside. I’m even more reluctant to check my backpack because it has my laptop, which I use in-flight to not be bored.

Out of options, I opt to check the helmet bag and have already resigned myself to what I assume will be a $25 fee. Don’t ask me where I get the notion the cost will be $25, for one thing this is Paris, and whatever the fee is, it’ll be in Euros. Also, this is the first time I’ve ever had to pay a luggage fee as I have free checked bag status on the airlines I fly.

Imagine my shock and even horror when the pleasant lady with the pretty French accent, politely informs me that the fee for checking my helmet bag will be seventy euros or approximately eighty dollars. Convinced I didn’t hear her correctly, I ask “Seven Euros?” To which she answers, “Seventy Euros,” Convinced my hearing is off, I further clarify, “You mean seventy as in seven-zero?” To which she confirms, “Oui,” while flashing the famously French sardonic smile of ironic indifference.

Before continuing this tale, I must unequivocally state up front that I’ve found over the years that when unforeseen shit happens, which it always does, it’s best to remain calm and accept your fate while trying to work toward an optimal solution. I must also unequivocally state that in most such situations I do remain calm and properly represent my country to avoid having us get a bad reputation on account of me. So, I take a deep namaste breath to allow myself to present a calm reassuring smile. That being said, as John Steinbeck famously pointed out, sometimes things devolve into “The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men.”

My initial shock and anger somehow sneak past my travel mantra, a brief but regrettable moment unfortunately laced with disparaging nonsense about the morality of Air France and possibly the French in general; a moment fueled by the polite Air France representative with the pretty accent and sardonic smile staring back at me with ironic indifference; a look that further fuels my anger. Realizing the path I’m on is not one that ends with me boarding the plane and making my Dublin connection, I regain my composure, to the extent possible, and set about to resolve things in a mutually acceptable manner.

I’ve always been a win-win kind of guy and can pretty much figure ways out of most situations, however, I have to admit that the attractive Airline agent with the pretty French accent had me perplexed because, as the absurdity of the situation increases, my ability to navigate a rational outcome diminishes, and as fate would have it, this situation is no different. While I love France and the French, the thing that flows through every aspect of their lives is that they’re innate rule followers. If a traffic sign says go seventy, they go seventy, not seventy-one or sixty-nine, but seventy. If a street sign says, “Don’t’ Cross Here,” they’ll walk blocks out of their way until allowed to cross. I on the other hand, either from the cultural influences of my cowboy upbringing or a by-product of being proudly Polish, don’t assume rules are carved from stone tablets, I prefer to consider the logical legitimacy of a rule within the context of my current situation and optimize a best path forward while keeping their suggestion in mind.

While this may seem to put me in conflict with the attractive counter agent with the pretty French accent whose sardonic smile leaves little room for compassion, I nonetheless seize the opportunity to wrestle a “win-win,” outcome from a situation where she holds all the cards. Boarding the plane is my desired outcome and avoiding a ridiculous seventy-euro baggage fee is my process variable, and with those initial conditions, I set about enact what I prefer to call, “an optimized solution,” though I’m pretty sure replay film from the surveillance cameras provides a different perspective.

I manage to muster up a smile while calmly informing the lovely agent with the pretty accent that seventy euros is ridiculously insane and that rather than give Air France the satisfaction of sucking money from me with their arbitrary weight restriction, I’ll simply lighten my bags. To which she responds, “. . . but of course monsieur, that is a possibility.”

Given the estimated weight of the passenger beside me, along with several behind me, the weight allotted each passenger was clearly not under French governance. Imagine what airline travel would look like if instead of setting illogical limits on the weight of passenger carry-ons, there were limits on how much combined passenger plus carry-on weight was allowed. Imagine if we had to get up on the luggage conveyor belt to be weighed beside our luggage like chickens being sold at market, and then being assessed a fee based on how much weight we were exerting on the air-frame. For one thing, a lot of Americans would be paying a lot more for airline travel. . . as they should because it cost more to fly their overweight carcass from point A to point B than it does mine. But no, instead of logically assessing fees based on combined passenger weight, Air France comes after me for having a helmet and backpack weight that when combined with my weight would be significantly less than the guy beside me.

So, being the engineer I am, I quickly realize that to resolve this matter I have to become the guy beside me, I have to be the obese passenger Air France doesn’t care about. My plan is as boldly theatrical as it is likely to end with me not boarding the plane, but once a plan a hatched, it must be followed, at least that’s how I’ll explain myself when the French police start asking questions.

My plan is so simple, I’m sure it won’t work, but I don’t care, this situation has escalated to the level where points need to be made and I’m more than happy to be the guy to make the necessary statement. So, literally while I am standing in front of the pretty ticket agent with the nice French accent, her colleagues, managers, and everyone in the fifteen-minute check in line, I start emptying the contents from my helmet bag and backpack. Initially I jam chocolate bars, my lithium cell phone backup battery, my coin purse, and other such things in my coat pockets, grateful I didn’t check my coat in the dry bag. Once full, I start stuffing half-kilogram cheese wedges down my pants and cinching the added girth with my belt like a bloated horse being saddled. The cheese wedges still ice cold from my apartment fridge but I’m not letting that distract me, not when points need to be made.

Once done, I methodically close my helmet bag and backpack, hoist them onto the conveyor belt and ask the pretty ticket agent with a sardonic smile to weigh them. “Voila,” she says satisfied I’ve met the weight requirement, “You are approved to proceed.”

I then journey back down the long terminal and turn next to the pharmacy where people are queued up in the passport control line with the cold cheese stuffed down my pants numbing my legs. After a twenty-minute wait, I process past the Air France agent who early sent me back to the ticket counter able to muster my version of a sardonic smile given the state of my concealed contraband. I process through passport control without incident. Then, in an act of both defiance and great satisfaction, before getting into the security screening line, I pause to return the cold cheese now numbing my skin, the chocolate bars in my coat pocket, and all the other sundry items stashed here and there on my person back into my helmet bag and backpack. I then proceed through security screening and head to my departure gate deeply satisfied that my bags will be free on board and well beyond the random weight restriction Air France arbitrarily set. I’m equally satisfied and that I denied Air France their chance to screw me out of seventy euros from their revenue extortion scam.

There is a lesson to be learned from this unfortunate incident. Yes, it should be that one must always check for the nuanced rules of the airlines their traveling, but that’s not the lesson I intend to convey. Rather, its that every situation has a solution, as long as you’re willing stuff cold French fromage down your pants in a crowded airport.