Do You Check Your Luggage Or Are You Normal?

Image: Kayak

A fully-loaded Boeing 737-800 has room for 189 seats, and with U.S. airports having a track record of losing around 0.75 percent of all checked bags, it’s all but guaranteed that one person on this theoretical plane is going to get to their destination without a change of clothes or their swim trunks and sandals. I can tell you one thing, it sure as shit isn’t going to be me. I haven’t checked my bag since 2012, and I don’t plan on changing that. I know where my change of underwear is, do you?

Delta’s Luggage Only Flight

My go-to strategy for over a decade has been to run most of my stuff in a hard-sided roller bag that fits in the overhead compartment, and a small duffel bag to put down with my feet. I can fit everything I need for a week or two overseas in those two bags, and if I can’t, I pare down until I can. Sometimes that even includes a motorcycle helmet for when I fly somewhere to test a new bike. I can’t afford to lose my helmet ahead of a new bike test, of course. And even if the airline doesn’t lose your bag, you have to wait to check the bag at your departure and wait to pick it up at baggage claim at your destination. I’d rather just walk in and walk out without talking to anyone, thanks.

We’re winding down toward the end of the work day, and we both know you aren’t getting anything else done the rest of the day, so let’s have a chat about luggage. Would you rather be fed into the spinning propeller of an Embraer than roll a bag around an airport terminal? Would you rather eat your fast food breakfast directly off the floor of an airport bathroom than check a bag? What side of the divide are you on, and why?