Try to imagine that you’re a thief. Yes, it’s weird, but give it a whirl. You like to steal things, like jewelry, electronics, and credit cards. You’re perfectly comfortable picking pockets and rooting through other people’s purses. You have no qualms about walking off with personal items. It’s lucrative, of course, and you also get a thrill out of every successful plunder. Not everyone can pull this off undetected. But you can, and you revel in it.
So here’s the question: Is a passenger jet a great place to steal someone’s belongings, or a terrible place? On the one hand, a plane is crowded, busy, and full of irritable passengers. To commit a crime, you’d have to execute it in extremely close quarters, with lots of potential witnesses. You know only a tiny fraction of planes have air marshals aboard, but what if there’s one on this flight? And what if someone spots you? On the other hand, most passengers keep to themselves. They try to respect overhead bin etiquette and personal space. Most long-haul flyers fall asleep. If you’re stealthy enough, you could open an overhead compartment, pretend you’re rifling through your own bag, and snatch a goodie from someone else’s luggage.
For this reason, passengers should keep their carry-on bags in the overhead bin across the aisle from where they’re sitting. According to Lloyd Figgins, a security expert recently interviewed by Travel + Leisure, storing your luggage a little farther away keeps it within your line of sight. If the bag is any closer, you might not see anything — especially if you have a window seat.
Explore defensive packing and storage tips for planes
