An ergonomic assessment of the airline baggage handler

67baggage handlers as well as aviation safety professionals revealed that overweightpassenger baggage is thought to be one of the leading causes of back injury (Dell, 1997).Many airline companies do not put a weight restriction on baggage that must belifted/carried by baggage handlers. If a weight limit is imposed on passenger baggage,most airlines charge a nominal fee for the excess weight of the bag(s), still allowing thebaggage to be checked in. This practice does not help or solve the problem of overweightbags at all, passing the problems along, with all of the negative ergonomic issues, to thebaggage handlers (Dell, 1997). On the flip side, airlines are very conscious aboutpotential loss of revenue due to customer dissatisfaction with strictly imposed baggageweight limits. It appears that most airline companies would rather take the chance withthe welfare of their baggage handlers, than to make paying customers repack andpotentially unhappy (Dell, 1997). These would be returning customers could then go toanother airline that does not impose such inconvenient rules for passenger baggage.Therefore, in order to truly be effective with the weight restriction problem ofpassenger baggage the airline companies must form a unified front in making thisexpectation of passengers and their baggage a rule. Without domestic and internationalunified consistency amongst airline carriers this effort will be trivial. Passengers andtheir baggage travel all over the world, thus if one airline does not follow this code thenall airlines are adversely affected.On the same note, if airline companies feel that they must maintain flexible due tothe fear of the loss of potential revenue, then there are other ways to protect the interest ofthe baggage handler against overweight baggage. A simple way to do this would be tohave a universal or worldwide system of marking bags that are over a certain weight limit