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Finding room for carry-on baggage has become 'the Hunger Games' of air travel, analyst says – CBC.ca

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Cost of Living5:00Cakes on a plane

Flight attendant Cat Jones will never forget the day she spotted a woman carrying a wedding cake down the bridge to board her plane in Winnipeg.

When the passenger reached the door, Jones gently mentioned that the box was above the size limits for carry-on baggage.

“It was her niece’s wedding and it was some sort of family friend who owned the bakery. And it was a really kind of meaningful, sentimental part of this wedding that was about to happen,” said Jones, who worked for WestJet at the time.

She and her colleagues spent at least 10 minutes moving people and their carry-on baggage around the plane so that they could make room for the cake box on the floor of a window seat where it wouldn’t block anyone’s exit in the event of an emergency, Jones told Cost of Living. And that was just for one passenger’s extra gear. 

Jones and other airline industry insiders say passengers have become carried away with carry-on baggage, leading to costly delays.  

That’s prompting calls for changes to how airplanes charge for baggage, with some discount airlines like Sunwing and Spirit already beginning to flip the fee structure so passengers pay for the privilege of keeping their bags on board.

A flight attendant kneels in the aisle of a plane
Cat Jones, who was a WestJet flight attendant for 10 years, said she’s had to make room in the cabin for all manner of objects from Disneyland lightsabers to houseplants and even a wedding cake. (Submitted by Cat Jones)

Henry Harteveldt, a travel analyst with Atmosphere Research Group in San Francisco, says this change needs to happen, and that passengers should be allowed to check a bag for free.

“People would appreciate this. They would feel less nickel-and-dimed. And people who want the convenience and control would pay to bring their bags on the plane,” said Harteveldt, who noted airlines would likely generate the same or more in baggage revenue. 

Plus, there would be other savings, he said.

“When the airplane is sitting on the ground, it’s not making money for the airline.”

Delays are happening in part because, as Jones describes it, the crew is stuck playing “Tetris” with people’s backpacks, pillows, duty-free purchases and souvenirs.

Return flights from Disney trips were especially challenging, said Jones, who lives in Calgary and now works in private aviation.

“Where am I going to put these lightsabers? And massive stuffed animals. Mickey Mouse is, you know, coming in on top of the allotted, one carry-on, one personal item. It needs its own overhead bin.”

Because airlines share gates and runways, there’s a “domino effect” when overstuffed cabins lead to late departures, she said.

A woman wearing a light-coloured blazer poises for a photo.
Caroline K. Marete is a visiting assistant professor in the school of aviation and transportation technology at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. (Submitted by Caroline Marete)

Tardy takeoffs increase costs across the board, said Caroline Marete, a visiting assistant professor in the school of aviation and transportation technology at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind.

“If there are more passengers trying to get their cabin carry-ons through the aisles, this delays the entire process of boarding and also disembarking the passengers that are arriving,” said Marete, who has a PhD in aviation technology.

It means the planes burn more fuel, the airlines pay more for ground-handling services and the crews stay on duty longer, she said. The staffing aspect is particularly complicated given that there are strict maximums on how many hours airline crew can work.

And those costs may translate into higher ticket prices.

Harteveld said boarding wasn’t always such a time-consuming process.

“If you go back into the 1970s and ’80s, airlines would board flights maybe 20 minutes before departure. But we didn’t have this jostling for space in the overhead bins,” he said.

“It’s like a Hunger Games environment on the plane. And may the odds ever be in your favour of finding a spot for your bag near your seat.”

A woman's hands and knees are shown on top of a small, overstuffed yellow suitcase.
Overstuffed cabin baggage is leading some to call for changes in how baggage fees are structured, with passengers paying for the convenience of taking their luggage on board. (Sebra/Shutterstock)

He said Southwest is the only U.S. airline that does not charge for checked baggage, and notes the company credits this with keeping its time on the ground between flights to an absolute minimum.

Another U.S. discount carrier, Spirit Airways, charges around $5 US more to carry on rather than check a bag.

In Canada, Sunwing allows passengers who book vacation packages to check one bag for free, up to 50 pounds (around 23 kilograms). While it allows travellers to bring one personal item — such as a purse or laptop bag — into the cabin, it costs $25 to take a small suitcase, duffel or backpack as carry-on.

For major carriers like Air Canada, only certain fare classes, loyalty programs, destinations or airline partnerships come with a checked bag included.

An issue of trust

Harteveld said it would also be helpful if airlines could provide more assurance that people’s baggage would arrive with them at their destination.

“If more airlines did as Alaska and Delta do in the U.S. and say: ‘Look, if you check your bag, we guarantee that it will be delivered to you in 20 minutes or less — and if it’s not, we’ll either give you frequent flier miles or a travel credit,’ then I think we’d see a lot more people feeling comfortable checking their bags.”

A lot of airlines have invested in tracking apps that allow passengers to monitor the status and location of their bags, said Harteveld, but without a guarantee, “a lot of people are going to say, ‘I don’t want to waste my time at the destination.'”

Lynn Kennedy of Oxford Mills, Ont., south of Ottawa, told Cost of Living she wouldn’t mind checking her bag if she knew for sure she’d get it back.

“If I would have a guarantee that I’d actually get my stuff at the end of my flight, I would check it for sure and save all the hassle of shoving things up in the bins and fighting with people for space and everything else.”

But when she flew frequently for work, Kennedy said she’d often see people travelling with multiple carry-on bags equivalent in volume to a large suitcase. “And nobody challenged them.” 

A mess of colourful luggage and frustrated passengers is pictured at a crowded baggage terminal inside Vancouver International Airport.
A mess of luggage and passengers is seen at a baggage carousel inside Vancouver International Airport amid mass cancellations and suspended flights on Dec. 19, 2022. Many passengers are opting to carry-on their bags to avoid luggage problems caused by these kinds of disruptions. (Supplied by Craig Minielly)

In Victoria, Faye Fergusson said she wishes airlines had never allowed anything as big as a roller suitcase in the cabin because too many people abuse the privilege. She said she’s noticed that those who fly frequently for work usually have modest carry-on luggage.

“But then you have these others who will come on and they will have a suitcase and a backpack and maybe a couple of shopping bags. And they’re taking up one, two, three people’s space in the overhead bins.”

Fergusson said she applauds the idea of paying for carry-on, and thinks business travellers would opt for the quick airport exit they need while vacationers should cool their jets at the baggage carousel.

But business adviser Jenifer Bartman, who lives near Winnipeg, doesn’t think charging for carry-on luggage is the answer. 

“What I would rather see from a consumer standpoint is better enforcement of what the rules actually are,” she said. 

“I’ve seen this happen multiple times where there’s a garment bag, you know, a backpack or a big heavy duffel bag or a roller suitcase and a computer bag and they walk on without even having the staff blink at them.”

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Japan’s SoftBank returns to profit after gains at Vision Fund and other investments

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TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.

Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.

Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).

SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.

The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.

WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.

SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.

SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.

SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.

The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.

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Trump campaign promises unlikely to harm entrepreneurship: Shopify CFO

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Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.

“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.

“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”

Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.

On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.

If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.

These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.

If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.

However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.

He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.

“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.

Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.

The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.

Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.

Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.

Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.

Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.

Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”

In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.

“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:SHOP)

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RioCan cuts nearly 10 per cent staff in efficiency push as condo market slows

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TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.

The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.

The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.

RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.

The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.

RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:REI.UN)

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