Ban oversized hand luggage

I read in the Metro earlier this week that airline passengers are to banned from taking over sized hand luggage on flights.

Excellent I say.

This was something that wound me up when we were in America. People with "hand luggage" they couldn't even carry themselves.

It meant long queues as you entered security (but I have a bigger beef with security - I'll come to that another day). And long queues as you entered the plane. This was because so many people had luggage they couldn't lift to get in the over head lockers. Then when someone else taller or stronger offered to help them lift it they had to spend about 5 minutes trying to shove it in because the bag was too big for the locker.

What happened to taking on the flight what you need for the flight? Eg ipod, book, passport, water?

I realise that people don't want to wait for their luggage after the flight but it annoyed me that I had to wait to board and unboard my flight whilst lockers were crammed and unloaded the other end. It wasn't like we waited long to get our bags either - but this was probably because there were only about 20 suitcases on the plane. So if airlines are going to let people with big hand luggage board they need to start designing planes for short haul flights differently - less cargo area and bigger over head lockers.