page_title: Ilyushin Il-86
section_title: The "Luggage at hand" system
hierarchical_section_title: Ilyushin Il-86 / Development / Concept / The "Luggage at hand" system
caption_attribution_description: Pulkovo Airlines Ilyushin Il-86
context_page_description: The Ilyushin Il-86 is a short- to medium-range wide-body jet airliner. It was the USSR's first wide-body and the world's second four-engined wide-body. Designed and tested by the Ilyushin design bureau in the 1970s, it was certified by the Soviet aircraft industry, manufactured and marketed by the USSR.
  Developed during the rule of Leonid Brezhnev, the Il-86 was marked by the economic and technological stagnation of the era: it used engines more typical of the late-1960s, spent a decade in development, and failed to enter service in time for the Moscow Olympics, as was originally intended. The type was used by Aeroflot and successor post-Soviet airlines and only three of the total 106 constructed were exported. In service, it gained recognition as a safe and reliable model with no fatal incidents during three decades of passenger-carrying operations.
  At the beginning of 2012, only four Il-86s remained in service, all with the Russian Air Force.
context_section_description: The Soviet solution to the airport capacity issue involved passengers loading and unloading their own luggage into and from the aircraft. This was eventually called "the luggage at hand system" (Russian: "система «багаж с собой»"; transliterated: "sistyema bagazh s soboy"). Soviet aviation journalist Kim Bakshmi described it (at its ultimate) thus: "One arrives five minutes prior to departure, buys oneself a ticket on board the aircraft, hangs one's coat next to the seat and places one's bag or suitcase nearby.".
  Taking suitcases into the cabin, as in trains, was studied, but necessitated a 3 m fuselage extension with a 350-seat capacity. To avoid this, passengers were to deposit their luggage in underfloor compartments as they entered the airliner.
  Ideas similar to the "luggage at hand system" were briefly addressed in the West. Airbus studied such an arrangement in the mid-1970s. Lockheed implemented it into the L-1011 TriStar in 1973 at the request of Pacific Southwest Airlines (who used the baggage compartment as an entertainment lounge) and possibly also to suit potential Soviet buyers (see below).
caption: An Il-86 at Pulkovo Airport, Saint Petersburg
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