New Airline Baggage Policies Will Directly Impact Debaters
posted by Jon Cruz on April 23rd, 2008
NEW YORK, N.Y. — Here’s a little gift to the debate community just in time for the Tournament of Champions!
Expedia recently issued a summary of new airline baggage policies. Many airlines — starting on or around the TOC weekend — will begin charging money for checking a second bag. The future impact on programs with policy debate teams, extemporaneous speakers, and, yes, adventurous Lincoln-Douglas debaters? Considerable.
Many thanks to Jane Boyd for the link.
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18 Responses to “New Airline Baggage Policies Will Directly Impact Debaters”
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Posted from: 76.19.77.197
April 24th, 2008 07:55
Have the airlines changed their carry-on policies? If not you can still have a backpack and a duffle-bag as carry-ons. This is probably sufficient for a LDer most of the time meaning that there’s space to check a policy tub and not have to pay for it.
Posted from: 67.101.46.247
April 24th, 2008 08:30
United and US were the first to start this policy, so TOC bound debaters on those airlines are likely stuck w/ the single bag limit w/out additional charges. Other airlines jumped on later, including Continental and Northwest. These late additions are the ones whose single bag limit kicks in on May 5. Also, it only applies to tickets purchased April 5 or later. So…if you are on Continental or Northwest and bought your tix before April 5, you still have a two bag limit. If you bought them after April 5, you will need to pay $25 for a second bag on your return from the TOC, but not on your outbound. If you are on United or US, you’re stuck w/ a single bag. Also, Southwest is down to two bags (from its previous three).
Posted from: 67.101.46.247
April 24th, 2008 08:43
Additional advice…If you are on United, US, Continental, Northwest, bring your purchase confirmation e-mail with you to the airport so that you can prove that your tickets were purchased before April 5.
From the United website: “Customers who purchased these types of fares on or after February 4, 2008 and prior to April 4, 2008 for travel on or after May 5, 2008 may request a waiver of the second bag service fee upon check-in with a Customer Service Representative at the airport. Alternatively, those customers may request reimbursement from United’s refund department.”
From my experience, I recommend against counting on a refund. The United refunds department is not reliable.
Also, the new fees are likely to cause chaos at check-in, so be sure to give yourself extra time at the airport before your flight.
Posted from: 67.101.46.247
April 24th, 2008 08:48
I should mention that the United stuff above is about full fare and awards tickets. Discount (most) fares on United and US have been at one bag since February, so unless you purchased very early, you will have to pay for the additional bag.
Posted from: 24.164.191.184
April 24th, 2008 18:33
sucks
Posted from: 209.181.228.22
April 25th, 2008 07:30
I’ll guess this means more policy teams will be going with more digital evidence, and less printed evidence.
Posted from: 68.173.139.74
April 26th, 2008 10:25
Is paper more efficient than digitized evidence?
Posted from: 98.199.112.103
April 26th, 2008 10:55
in my opinion it looks worse to read off a computer and the screen cover your face instead of reading off a piece of paper with periods where you can look up
Posted from: 72.68.76.55
April 26th, 2008 11:32
additionally, most files in their entirety won’t fit on the computer screen, so you’ll have to scroll down as you’re reading which is irritating
Posted from: 74.73.176.171
April 26th, 2008 11:54
Is that less irritating than razing a small forest to fill four tubs per team?
I mean, we’re as guilty of this of this as anyone — Bronx Science has more than twenty policy teams — and there are many valid reasons for sticking to paper that I’ve heard from folks who actively coach policy. But in an age of decreasing costs for laptops, and high costs of mass photocopying, I can’t help but wonder if a day of digitization is finally not too far off.
Posted from: 67.101.46.247
April 26th, 2008 12:30
I think the real roadblock to going mostly digital is the need to share evidence with opponents and judges. If you don’t have hard copy for them, you’re going to have to give up your laptop for as long as they need the evidence–especially difficult if you flow in the it. One might be able to share evidence with USB keys, assuming everyone has a laptop. Of course then we would need to develop norms regarding teams and judges keeping the digital files post round.
I expect that what will really happen is that many will pay the extra bag fee, while there will also be pressure to cut tubs. I know that we plan to try for a three tub limit next year, which should work so long as LD and policy folk travel together. I hope that the bag limit will have the following positive impacts–
1)Encouraging teams to carry their least frequently used files/backfiles digitally, to be printed only as needed. Of course this would require each team to carry a printer, which presents another bag limit challenge.
2)Encouraging debaters to write better files. In most cases, nothing needs to be over 100 pages. I’m sick of seeing 500 page heg files that are really unedited compilations of various generations of camp files. These files are practically useless in round, because the crap to quality ratio is so poor. I think we need to change our perspective as coaches and not praise debaters for generating giant files. We need to give page limits with our assignments to force our debaters to select only the best evidence. The attitude should never be that more is better. The debater should be able to justify the the inclusion of each piece of evidence she puts in the file.
I do anticipate at least one neutral impact–the abandonment of expandos for all but the most important files. I’m convinced that much of the recent tub proliferation is not a result of teams carrying more files, but a product the files taking up more space.
Posted from: 98.199.112.103
April 26th, 2008 12:33
yeah i would have to agree, the switch to electronics/digitization is kind of inevitable to some extent. however, hassin i don’t think one needs to scroll down in an irritating way. for example, on my microsoft word, when i read off of a computer i click a button at the bottom corner that says (full screen reading) and it puts it like book format with two pages for the entire screen and i just click the right key once for the next 2 pages. its pretty efficient and not at all time consuming.
the thing about policy tubs full of files is that its much more accessible and reliable. if you rely on your laptop and you lose your laptop, it crashes, etc. before or in round you are screwed. one thing that happened to me was i was reading off my laptop during a round and norton antivirus decided to have a random scan, which threw off my speech.
Posted from: 68.173.139.74
April 26th, 2008 13:31
Shit happens.
There’s liability with everything. With tubs, things will inevitably spill (best scenario: novice policy team knocked everything out of their tub, then proceed to spilled water everywhere, and then decided to spread the evidence across the auditorium floor, air drying each page separately), people will forget them somewhere, or the airline will lose them in the deep abyss of other hopelessly lost luggages.
The only genuine flaws about why digitization is bad is that sharing evidence is going to be difficult and the ethical concerns that might arise. Other than that, it’s all about “Goddamn it. It’s such a hassle to press a button on my computer and scroll down the page.”
Posted from: 98.199.112.103
April 26th, 2008 14:19
i have seen tubs lost and papers spilled and water spilled on some evidence, but none of it was completely devastating. maybe thats just coming from a school with under 10 policy teams but there is much more of a liability with computer problems than with papers i believe. it maybe be easier to carry around, but it is also difficult to rely on it for everything. yeah sure you might have a big heg file on your computer, but to put all your files on your computer can get messy and hard to track (at least the number of files our team has)
Posted from: 74.73.176.171
April 26th, 2008 14:43
TSA opened our tubs to look in, and failed to secure them properly. On our flight back from Blake, we watched helplessly as thousands of sheets of paper blew out from the plane after we landed and the baggage claim folks opened up the plane to transport the stored luggage. It’s taken months to get the money back we requested — for photocopying, damaged tubs, etc. — though Northwest did at least give us travel vouchers for $100/passenger.
Lexy’s probably right about the immediate positive impacts, though I remain convinced that eventually, with the establishment of community norms, digitization will be the way to go.
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
April 26th, 2008 16:16
lexy is right on about how annoying it is to pass computers/usb keys around. for right now i think carrying fewer files + a printer is the best option. its really pretty easy to carry a printer. i have an hp laser that takes up at most half a tub of space. it also would easily fit in w/ my clothes if i took one of my larger pieces of luggage.
the ’scrolling’ issue is not a problem in speeches as much as it is during prep. no file is going to be organized in such a way that you read the same pages in the same order every time. copying/pasting cards out of files is way more time consuming than flipping through and reorganizing a stack of papers. i do everything digitally that i possibly can (i have not physically cut a card in a long time and i flow on my laptop) but its not really practical to roll w/ no paper unless youre the type of team that doesnt need tubs anyway.
of course, theres also a lot of human factors research shows significantly slower reading speeds (as much as 30%) when reading from a computer instead of paper, particularly if the document was not formatted for a computer screen (i.e. the tons of scanned backfiles everyone has)
Posted from: 75.73.219.151
April 26th, 2008 17:55
“of course, theres also a lot of human factors research shows significantly slower reading speeds (as much as 30%) when reading from a computer instead of paper”
why’s that?
Posted from: 76.25.80.153
April 26th, 2008 18:24
In other news:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/04/26/obama.debate/index.html
I hope we continue to have judges.