The joy of passengers who read in various media outlets about the possibility of summing up baggage allowances at Aeroflot and other airlines turned out to be premature. New controversial amendments to the Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR) could destroy this opportunity for most passengers as early as October, Aviablogger.com reports.
On August 10, the Prosecutor General's Office announced that it had forced Aeroflot to change the rules for summing up the baggage allowances of those flying together on the same flight in favor of passengers. Previously, Aeroflot allowed only the number of pieces of baggage to be summed up, but not their weight, and this was completely pointless - anyone could sum up the number of pieces without asking the airline. However, the FAP requires that weight be summed up, and the prosecutor's protest led to changes in Aeroflot's rules.
In other words, two passengers flying together, each entitled to, say, one piece of 23 kilograms, can now check in, say, one bag of 30 kilograms and one of 15 kilograms. Or even one bag weighing no more than 32 kilograms (this is the limit for one piece according to international rules, adopted to protect the health of baggage handlers). This will greatly simplify the process of packing for many families and couples, and sometimes for business travelers. However, all such passengers must fly the same route on the same flights (although their tickets can be issued as separate bookings).
The question of whether a passenger who is flying alone but has the right to carry two pieces of 23 kilograms each can add weight in the same way in one suitcase remains unclear. In the case of Aeroflot, this applies, for example, to members of the elite levels of Aeroflot Bonus and other SkyTeam alliance loyalty programs, as well as all passengers flying on certain routes (currently, these include all flights to Beijing, Shanghai, Delhi, Hanoi, travel between Russia and Tokyo, Istanbul or Belgrade, but this list changes periodically and the benefits are limited in time). Nowhere is it directly stated that such a passenger can check in one piece of 30 kilograms instead of two pieces of 23, and Aeroflot employees previously opposed such a decision. Aviablogger sent a proposal to the Ministry of Transport to clarify this issue in the new version of the FAP.
All of the above actually applies to all other Russian airlines, as they are also required to comply with FAP requirements. In particular, S7 Airlines, during one of the proceedings on a passenger complaint, already received a court decision on the need to sum up weight standards. In case any difficulties arise, passengers of any Russian airline can arm themselves with printouts from the Prosecutor General's Office website and the text of FAP-82, paragraph 127, before traveling to the airport.
Unfortunately, the text of the FAP may change as early as October — and not in favor of passengers. The new version of the FAP proposed by the Ministry of Transport, already notorious for its charge for carry-on baggage, for some unknown reason limits the summing up of the norms only to those passengers who fly on return tickets. And such passengers are now a minority.
If we exclude the version about the intentional nature of the introduction of such a restriction, then most likely the discrepancy arose because the new Air Code guarantees free carriage of baggage only to passengers with refundable tickets. It is possible that the authors of the amendments to the FAP automatically transferred the same wording to this point of the amendments, completely overlooking the fact that airlines may, at their own discretion, provide free carriage of baggage to passengers with non-refundable tickets - for example, the same Aeroflot does this now and plans to do so in the future. In addition, even if the baggage is not free, and passengers flying together on non-refundable tickets have paid for its carriage, it is logical to give them the opportunity to sum up the purchased norms. It remains to be hoped that this obvious absurdity will be corrected in the course of further editing of the amendments to the FAP that have caused such a great resonance.
Source: travel.ru