Checking a bag (or two, or three) is sometimes an inevitable part of travel. And when it is a situation where you have to travel with extra luggage, you drop your bags off at your airline’s check-in, pay any necessary baggage fees, put your information on those little luggage tags, and hope for the best.
That being said, dealing with lost or even damaged baggage is one stressful part of the travel experience. But, this doesn’t have to be your reality. What if you could do something about preventing your precious cargo from being mishandled or damaged while it’s en route?
Your Checked Luggage Should Have More Wheels, Says Ramp Agent Rachel
Ramp agent Rachel Bacha, who posts videos to her TikTok account rachel.bacha, shared some great tips in this video. For starters, travel with checked luggage that has four wheels as opposed to two.
In her video series on TikTok titled “Everything you need to know about a suitcase coming from a luggage handler,” Rachel shared one major travel tip when it comes to checking luggage:
“Any time you are purchasing a suitcase, get a bag with four wheels for a couple of different reasons.”
TikToker Shares Tips For Checked Luggage
This baggage handler on TikTok recently revealed in one of her videos the type of luggage that is most likely to be thrown around and mishandled by baggage handlers. Given that she is professional and all, you might want to check out what she has to say so that the luggage on your next trip doesn’t meet the same fate as others.
Her reasoning, she said, is because more wheels can make loading a piece of luggage easier for baggage handlers who are often doing the luggage loading and unloading on a time crunch.
“There are people loading your bags on the planes and some of the planes have really long cargo bins, and at some airports, they don’t have a machine that takes all of the bags into the bin to you,” Rachel explained in her video.
Large Airplane Holds Means Luggage Can Get Thrown Around
Rachel also explained that because some airplane holds are really big, it makes moving passengers’ luggage very hard for the two baggage handlers on the job.
“So there are two people, one throwing the bag and one stacking the bag (into the airport hold).”
She continued, “I hesitate to use the word ‘throw’ but that is what it is, we throw bags. Some of those planes have bins that are 20 feet long. Your bag has to start from here (at the front of the hold) and go all the way back there…and the way it gets there is by being rolled, slid, or tossed.”
4-Wheeled Suitcases Will Get Rolled Onto Plane
From her experience, Rachel said that bags with two wheels are going to get tossed, and alternatively, a bag with four wheels is going to get rolled. This means that a wheeled piece of luggage will be less likely to come out of that plane hold with any signs of damage.
While there are handling guidelines in place by airlines and baggage companies, getting a bag onto a plane is another story in practice, and some handlers may have to use some pressure to get that bag on board. On that subject, Rachel commented that “this is going to make some people not very happy, but that’s just how it is.”
“Now you can be prepared. How do you expect your bag to get from one destination to another in the same amount of time that you do?” She added.
At the end of the day, it’s best to travel with a piece of luggage that is easier to take from point A to point B, whether it be for the baggage handler or yourself as an individual passenger. Any little thing that you can do to make the whole travel experience as trouble-free and simple as possible is always a safe bet.
