EMB ERJ 170/175 ER/LR
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Weight And Balance
Flight Crew Became Reoriented
Human Factors; Procedure
About 15 minutes into the flight I received an ACARS from dispatch saying that the ramp crew added an extra 10 bags into our aft cargo bin; but did not write it on the cargo load report. The flight was supposed to be full with a jumpseater and prior to the final passenger count we ran the numbers for a full boat with jump with the bags noted at the time. We were going to be close to out Maximum Landing Weight (MLW); but were still within limits. As it turns out we only had 74 people on board 2 of which were children. In flight we changed our Zero Fuel Weight (ZFW) to show the new bag count. Again we were close to MLW but due to extended vectors due to weather we landed well below our MLW. I know we didn't exceed any limits because of the message from dispatch; but we easily could have and not have known. Not sure that there was anything we could have done to ensure the bag count was correct without physically counting the bags ours selves.
While enroute we received an ACARS message from our dispatcher who informed us that ops had called and said that the ramp added 10 extra bags to the aft cargo that apparently were not documented on our cargo load report. He said he could run the numbers and be sure that we were within CG limits. The captain added the weight to our zero fuel weight in the FMS and we continued the flight. I discussed the issue of our landing weight with the captain which was near max landing weight. Our dispatcher was communicating well with us and we decided that no further action was necessary/possible at that time. We continued to monitor our landing weight and landed without any issues.In the future this can be prevented by better communication between the ramp crew and flight crew. Fortunately; operations called our dispatcher and relayed the message. We were within a few hundred pounds of max landing weight and without that knowledge we had the potential to unknowingly land over max landing weight.
EMB175 flight crew is informed airborne that the ground crew loaded 10 bags in aft cargo hold without accounting for them on the weight and balance.