Ode to fictional Jenny

And, my best wishes for an easy trip, for those of you about to travel

A long time ago, during my “quit my job and move to Hollywood to become a screenwriter” era, I wrote a script called Study Abroad.

Think The Hangover meets Derry Girls; it’s about three Americans who meet while on a semester in Ireland.

Anyway, it started with a scene that went like this:

At the packed JFK departure terminal, 21-year-old Jenny — nervous, broke, and about to start her study-abroad semester in Ireland — learns at the check-in counter that her suitcase is ten pounds overweight and the airline wants a $140 fee she can’t spare.

In a desperate burst of logic and chaos, she unzips the bag in front of everyone, frantically shifting clothes, then begins layering them on: sweaters, hoodies, even multiple bras, transforming into a human laundry pile. The crowd stares as she shoves the bag back on the scale — exactly 50.0 pounds.

Victorious but sweating, she lumbers off toward security like a padded, determined marshmallow, perfectly setting the tone for the misadventures to come.

Honestly, it was a darn good script. But it also means I’ve always got a weather eye open for amusing stories about airlines and luggage limits.

And that’s what tuned me in, on the eve of the busiest travel day of the year, to the latest news from American Airlines.

Au revoir, metal cage of judgment

American announced recently that it’s removing metal bag-sizers—you know, the rigid frames that sit at boarding gates like mechanical judges—from gate areas.

If you’ve never had the pleasure of using one of these things, let me paint the picture:

• You’re at the gate, your bag looks like it might be a little too big, and a gate agent gestures toward the metal frame.

• You hoist your luggage, trying to angle it just right. Sometimes it slides in. Sometimes it doesn’t.

• And sometimes—most awkwardly—it sort of fits, leading to an uncomfortable negotiation about whether those extra two inches really matter.

Starting now, however, instead of making passengers prove their carry-on fits by wrestling them into an unforgiving template, gate agents will simply eyeball whether a bag looks too large for the overhead bin.

“As we further simplify the boarding experience for our customers and team members, American will soon remove bag sizers from the gate area,” the airline said.

A judgment call

Agents are being told to err on the side of the traveler if they’re unsure.

The official size limits aren’t changing. Carry-ons still can’t exceed 22 x 14 x 9 inches (including handles and wheels), and personal items max out at 18 x 14 x 8 inches.

And, if you really want to verify your bag meets the requirements, the sizers will still be available at check-in counters.

Just not at the gate, where they’ve long been a source of last-minute stress and occasional confrontation.

Now, will this lead to chaos?

Maybe! After all, if you remove the objective standard, maybe more people will show up with oversized bags, confident they can talk their way past a sympathetic gate agent? Won’t the overhead bins fill up faster, leading to more gate checks overall.

But let’s be optimistic. Let’s assume that the vast majority of passengers aren’t trying to game the system.

They’re just trying to get through the airport without the kind of desperate, sweater-layering theatrics fictional Jenny had to resort to.

So—and here’s a fairly rare statement—good for American Airlines.

And, good for those of you who are traveling today. Maybe it will make your trip a little less chaotic.

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7 other things

• How Trump’s 28-point plan for Ukraine shocked the world. (Axios)

• Robert F Kennedy Jr once dumped a dead bear in New York’s Central Park, sawed the head off a whale, claimed that a worm ate part of his brain and has peddled multiple conspiracy theories. But 71-year-old US health secretary, scion of the Kennedy political dynasty, has now been swept up in a sex scandal involving his alleged lover, Olivia Nuzzi, 32, a former journalist with New York Magazine that, even by his standards of eccentricity, is eye-catching. (The Telegraph)

• The Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a controversial team of federal cost-cutters previously led by Elon Musk, is no more. As of early November, DOGE “doesn’t exist,” according to Scott Kupor, the director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, which serves as the federal government’s human resources department. (TechCrunch)

• “Praise your kid 462 times a day?” The viral advice trend that’s making parents do the math. (Motherly)

• Soaring electricity prices are triggering a wave of power shutoffs due to nonpayment nationwide, leaving more Americans in the dark. Data from select utilities in 11 states show that disconnections have risen in at least eight of them since last year. In some areas, such as New York City, the surge has been dramatic — with residential shutoffs in August up fivefold from a year ago. (The Washington Post)

• The U.S. Department of Transportation is launching what it’s calling a “civility campaign” to promote good behavior on flights and at airports, as the busy holiday travel season gets underway. The department is naming the campaign “The Golden Age of Travel Starts with You” and announced the effort in a press release last week. (NPR)

• A federal judge is hotter than a newly brewed pot of coffee over the failure of Peter Coker Sr. and his son, Peter Coker Jr., to pay millions of dollars in restitution for their leading roles in the notorious $100 million New Jersey deli stock fraud. The Coker convicts owe a total of $5.56 million to victims of their scam, which involved illegally inflating the stock prices of two publicly traded companies to make them attractive candidates for mergers. The scheme led to one of the companies, then-known as Hometown International, having a market capitalization of more than $100 million despite owning only one small, money-losing delicatessen in the hardscrabble south Jersey town of Paulsboro. (CNBC)

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Thanks for reading. Photo by David Schultz on Unsplash. I wrote about some of this before at Inc.com. See you in the comments!