For Pacific Economy flights, I believe that they will still be running the piece system (2 pieces) , but this will be reduced to a max of 23kg per piece (instead of 32kg).

I was wondering if this might change people's plans for flights to and from the USA and Europe and NZ? I know it is still over double the allowance for flights via Asia, but it is still a large adjustment - a 28% decrease in allowance.

I will certainly be looking twice before flying via the USA now - the stopover in Singapore, Hong Kong or Bangkok may prove too tempting.

[QUOTE=treadsoftlyI know it is still over double the allowance for flights via Asia, but it is still a large adjustment .[/QUOTE]

I think you just answered your own question - it is still over double the allowance for flights via Asia - so people who are unable to travel light will still need to go via North America even though it has been reduced to a more sensible allowance . There really is no point cutting off your nose to spite your face by taking a routing that gives you an even smaller allowance. The vast majority of people do not take anywhere near 64kgs of checked luggage so it is only really going to make a difference to a relatively small number of pax anyway .

I moved most of my trips to europe to go via asia a few years ago due to the extremely inconvenient transit in LAX or SFO.

That said, I very rarely need to make full use of my baggage allowance so probably no impact.

For me the best allowance is with SQ - based on status I get double the allowance (not just an extra bag).

I prefer the 50kg weight allowance as I generally travel with 5 pcs of luggage, thus having to fly West from New Zealand anyway.

that must be absolute hell - if you don't mind me being incredibly nosy what sort of job do you have that requires you to lug all that around on a trip ?

I think a 2 x 23kg limit is perfectly reasonable, and in line with what North American airlines seem to be moving to.

What is IMO quite unreasonable is the 20kg total limit for Tasman and domestic flights. The substantial ill-will this generates, especially among international travelers who are surprised by it when they are hit with extra fees at the airport, must surely ultimately cost NZ more than the negligable revenue that the overweight fees generate.

Yes, this has already changed some people's plans. I forwarded a note on the item to a California-based family I know who are relocating to NZ for awhile. They have decided to not fly NZ transpac, but instead will fly to SYD on UA and then connect onwards to AKL. Even though it's a detour and the tran-tasman sector will be on NZ anyway, flying the trans-pac on UA gets them bigger baggage allowances.

But they cant use bigger allowance trans-tasman?

They are in for a suprise as UA was the first one to changethe rules on all flights, nect werethe other American carriers and then Lh, now it is NZ ..

I would tell them to reconcider as the allowance is 2*23 in Y and 2*32 in F and C ... and of course plus one for status ..

I hear what you say about the allowance still being plenty. I just wondered if on the balance of things e.g. inconvenience of LAX transit and immigration stuff, service considerations (esp as they're still using the Clasic 747s), whether it would make a difference.

I will be getting *A Gold Status this year, so will be able to take 2 x 20Kgs via Asia, which will be plenty for me. I may have flown via Asia anyway because of this new status, but the downgrading of the baggage allowance has just made me look twice at my options I suppose, instead of it being a no-brainer Air NZ decision.

That's correct for *G pax on NZ, but not on UA.

When UA last changed their international baggage policy (effective for tickets purchased on or after Sept 7, 2005) the checked baggage allowance for *G pax for for international coach remained the same: 3 bags, maximum 70 pounds/32kg each.

http://www.united.com/page/article/0,6722,51146,00.html

Since the parents in this family are both *Gold, flying UA permits them to check up to 6 bags of up to 32Kg each. If they flew with NZ, their limit would be 6 bags of up to 23Kg each.

Oh no that's just for personal travel By the time you count my ski equipment, outdoors stuff, piles of paper, bottles of duty free liquor (with the accompanying wrapping) as well as the usual stuff people take you�ve got around 5 piece (I�ve even been known to check a laser printer in with my stuff).

On a side point was at TUO once a few weeks ago when someone was trying to check in a television � but didn�t want to pay the excess charges.

I don�t think the 20kg limit is unreasonable � when they started enforcing it I�m sure the total weight of baggage went down as the word got out and people didn�t want to have to pay excess. The cost savings associated with that are not negligible, I can assure you.

What is unreasonable IMHO is agents who don�t know that Gold are entitled to an extra 20kg of luggage or agents that charge fare-paying Business Class passengers for excess luggage.

Huh? who can't use the bigger allowance trans-tasman? If you're asking about the California family I know, of course they can use the bigger allowance trans-tasman since they're on a single UA ticket, connecting through SYD on to a NZ operated UA code share flight to AKL. The bags will be tagged in LAX, by UA, using UA's rules.

So you are saying the UA codeshare on NZ flight entitles bigger baggage allowance.

If that is correct, then why not just take UA codeshare on the direct NZ flight?

and save some fuel surcharge's in the process ?