On occasion, posters concerned with luggage limits on intra-China flights inquire about carry-on restrictions and their enforcement. We generally tell them not to worry about it because abuses are extremely common.

Today I found myself in a situation that entailed giving this hypothesis a serious test. I packed 2 bags to 20kg each, which I was planning on checking, and a third to 10kg, which was to be my carry-on. My 130p flight had been delayed until 230p (pretty much SOP these days), so I felt comfortable showing up at the airport at 1245p. Low and behold, Shenzhen Airlines managed to find a replacement aircraft while I was making my way to the airport, which permitted them to stick with the original schedule.

The bad news for me was that I had just missed the 45-minute baggage drop cutoff.

So, faced with the prospect of hanging around the airport for an extra two hours for the next flight to SHA or trying to carry everything on, I decided attempt the latter. I wheeled my luggage cart past the boarding pass stamping lady right up to xray machine, ran the bags through, placed them on another cart on the back side, proceeded to the gate, the jetway, and the door to the plane. Once there, I had a brief discussion with the FAs, who ultimately ended up storing my big bags in the closet (gate checking was also an option, but they felt that the closet strategy was simpler).

I am by no means recommending this drill as a nice way to travel (e.g. the walk down the extremely long jetway --without the baggage cart-- was particularly unpleasant, and I obviously can't guarantee that other Chinese airports are as lax as SZX), but simply want to point out that I didn't receive the slightest amount of pushback --nary a strange look, in fact-- from a single airline/airport employee.