Weight accumulation

No, I am not talking about weight gain or loss. I am writing about the limited weight that we can carry on air travel.

Different airlines have different limits. While Air Deccan did not increase it from 15 to 20 kg even after becoming Deccan some others let u carry a 20 Kg of maximum. Business class travelers have it 25 Kg (in some airlines).

Why not accumulate it?

Now coming to the point of accumulating it. More often than not during my travel(especially traveling home) I carry way beyond that paltry 15-20 kg cap. Then I go requesting, insisting and citing instances where I was waived off a few Kilo grams last time and all that. But, once in a while I carry only a hand bag too. Now, if an airline could actually create a loyalty card where I could accumulate the unused check in luggage weight, how great it would be. Just as the last time I traveled by Deccan I checked in only 5 kg. I would have been so tempted to travel by Deccan if the remaining 10 could be used again in near future and letting me carry 25 kg next time. Most of the premier airlines like Jet airways, Kingfisher and Indian airlines do have loyalty pro grammes where by customers do get freebies for enrolling and then accumulating free miles. What they cannot accumulate is unused weight limits. I would definitely become a loyal customer to an airline that could offer me something like that. In fact most of the Indian people traveling to or from their native would be delighted by this as they have to carry lot of ghar ka khana etc.

Benefits:

1. Loyalty could substantially improve for family customers as families often tend to carry more average weight.

2. This could be a great differentiator for an airline in the highly cluttered aviation sector.

3. It could be a great feature to advertise.

Limitations

There would be a possibility of having passengers once in a while who would come with 200kgs of luggage smug smile on face and their membership card in pocket. Keeping air safety in mind the airlines may not be able to permit that and keeping the loyalty pro gramme in mind they may not be able to say no to the passenger either.

But, if the accumulated weight would lapse on a regular basis like half yearly or so then there could be way out.

Well, till when something like this does not come up, I can only think of requesting, insisting or finally giving up and paying more.