Different Page, Same Rules

(Gate 41 at Manchester Airport, twenty minutes before boarding.)

Martin: Sorry, but that can't come on board. If it doesn't fit in the sizer, it has to go in the hold.

Delia: It's a cello. If it goes in the hold, it comes off the plane in pieces.

Martin: I know. I'm not trying to be difficult — the rule's on the sign right there, and I can't change what it says.

Delia: I've read that sign in about nine airports this year.

Martin: Can it not go under a seat?

Delia: It's the size of an eight-year-old. Nothing about it goes under anything.

Martin: Then it has to be checked. I'm sorry.

Delia: I've got a concert in Hamburg at eight. If I miss this flight, there's no cello in the second half.

Martin: Believe it or not, I don't want it in the hold either. Bags get thrown down there. That's not me being rude about my colleagues, it's just what happens.

Delia: Okay. Then look at my booking, because it's got a seat.

Martin: It's got a what?

Delia: A seat. I paid for one. Fourteen A, same booking as mine. Eight hundred pounds, every time I fly, and if I don't pay it, I don't have an instrument at the other end.

Martin: You should have led with that.

Delia: I did, at the last airport, and they made me check it anyway.

(Martin turns to his screen and scrolls for a long moment.)

Martin: Okay. It isn't hand luggage.

Delia: That's what I've been trying to—

Martin: No, listen. I mean it genuinely isn't. Not in here. Hand luggage is one page. There's another page further down, and on that page it's called seat baggage.

Delia: Seat what?

Martin: Seat baggage. If a passenger buys an extra seat for an item, the item gets its own boarding pass and the size rule doesn't apply to it at all. Different word, different page, same rules. You've been allowed the whole time.

Delia: Twelve years. Nobody's ever said those two words to me.

Martin: To be fair, nobody's ever made me look.

(Martin prints a second boarding pass and hands it across the desk.)

Martin: There you go. Fourteen A. Window.

Delia: It'll love that.

Martin: Next time, don't say hand luggage at a gate. Say seat baggage.

Delia: And if they argue?

Martin: Ask them to turn the page.