I will be traveling on Air New Zealand from Queenstown to Auckland to San Francisco in September. I have a 55L backpack but I plan to throw nearly all clothes and toiletries away (I've been backpacking for a year and NZ is my last stop) so the weight will be down to about 10 kgs. I also have a small backpack with personals such as laptop, iPad, etc, that weighs around 5 kgs - this can go under the seat.

I see Air New Zealand has a 7 kg carry on limit and I was wondering how strict they are with this policy. I only have a 75 minute connection in SFO to connect to a US Airways flight to PHL on a separate ticket and I do not want to wait for checked baggage in SFO in order to make the connection.

Thanks!

Rob