Harper50505

I've always found TP pretty relaxed about hand luggage at LHR - unlike A3 where the same ground staff comb the waiting areas insisting on weighing and sizing all roller bags and tagging anything too heavy or too large - unless you have a M&B gold tag on it - other gold tags don't seem to cut it!

kurogoma

I just recently returned from a trip to Portugal, with two flights on TAP - inbound LHR - LIS, and outbound LIS - BCN.

At LHR, an agent was going around at the gate asking random passengers waiting for the flight to get their hand luggage weighed. While waiting in line to board, passengers in line were asked to weigh their hand luggage after their boarding passes were scanned. The two ladies right before me had not only their hand luggage weighed, they were asked to place their personal items on the scale too. All these exceeded the limit (those of us waiting in line were able to see most of what's going on, including the numbers on the digital scale they were using).
To be fair, there were a few passengers who were below the 8kg limit for hand luggage and they were asked to move on to the plane. And I also noticed most that were asked to weigh-in had the rolling luggage.
I had on a backpack and was not asked to weigh it at all. (I made sure it was under 8kg anyway, just in case)

At BCN, not only was there an announcement about this, they followed through with the physical weigh-in as well after boarding passes were scanned. Again, it seemed that agents tend to direct mostly rolling luggage on to be weighed.

From my experience, they were really strict with the 8 kg min. weight limit.

Harper50505

At LIS yesterday, I saw a change and every roller in groups A, B & C was weighed and most seemed destined for the hold. The Premium lane was not challenged at all.

Maybe things are getting a bit more strict.

starflight

Sharing my experiences in case they're helpful to others:

Departing from LHR: There was a scale at the entrance to the jetbridge, and it was used but not for every passenger. The first two people in line to board were told to weigh their bags. Both of their bags were just barely overweight (maybe only by ~0.2kg) and they were forced to check them. The gate agent got preoccupied with checking their bags, and the next large group of us were able to walk straight onto the plane without having our bags weighed. No idea if they ended up weighing more bags after that.

Departing from OPO: There was no scale or bag sizer visible at the gate, and I did not see gate agents make any comments about carry-on bag sizes. I checked in online and did not go to the check-in counter, so I don't know if they were weighing carry-ons there.

backdoc

They don't bother people flying in Executive or Top Executive, and I've heard them say it out loud. I had a young agent come up to me in line at LIS once and say that my carry-on was too big, an older agent that recognized me from a previous trip told her in Portuguese that I was flying in Business and not to bother me, so she moved on to the next victim.

Entrain

Any information about flights leaving from Chicago? This is stressing me out a lot -- keeping the personal items under 2kg seems almost impossible, my computer weighs that much by itself! I think we can keep the roller bags under 10kg, but it means not bringing a bunch of other stuff we'd ordinarily bring, and it's frustrating feeling like we're going to leave a bunch of stuff home that would make our trip nicer only to see everybody else's fully packed rollers going on board. Any ORD travellers with experience about what they'll let you take? Hmm, LIS and TLV are relevant too since those will be the other places we're leaving from, and there are some reports of stuff getting weighed (personal items too?) in LIS.

Entrain

Update: no weighing, no size-checking at ORD -- the stuff people carried on with them looked like what they'd bring on any airline. Will report from other points of embarkation!

Entrain

In LIS -- no scale and no checking of personal items, but they were putting hand baggage in the sizer. Ours didn't pass (and I thought I'd measured that they would fit the depth requirement if squeezed, but nope.) But -- they gate checked everything with no charge! Seems really hard to know what to expect.

Aired

Yesterday at LIS~YYZ flight they sized all carry on except for Exec class so I was spared, but 4 days earlier MRS-LIS, they sized and put my bag in the hold.

Entrain

At TLV, they told us at checkin (without weighing or sizing) that a backpack wasn't a personal item so all the rollers would have to be checked. But they didn't charge us! (And nothing got lost in the connection at LIS.)

So my experience, I guess, is that I wasted a lot of time stressing out about this when in fact the worst that happened to me is they make you check your carryons but don't charge you. But it really does seem like a lot depends on the mood of the folks working that particular gate on that particular day. And it's possible I was treated bettter as a Star Alliance Gold / Premium passenger even though we had Discount fares.

Greenpen

I am flying TAP in February so need to remember to attach some old *A gold tags to my suitcase!

tff

At LIS, flying to MIA, they were weighing everyone's carry-ons, except C class. There was a (long) line immediately the document check and everyone had to pass through the two agents with the scales to be able to seat around the gate. From what I could gather, but I'm not entirely sure, several people were paying extra.

Seanish

Recent experience with TAP

VCE-LIS -- never weighed, no extra scrutiny.
LIS-EWR -- My daughter and I went through final screening before they brought a scale out but many, if not most, passengers had bags weighed and some were forced to pay. One woman made a big scene.
EWR-LIS -- carry-on and personal items weighed, within limits.
LIS-VCE -- never weighed, no extra scrutiny.

trilith

hmm, this post got me worried , never took TAP before and have one booked from YUL (Montreal Canada) - LIS - MAD , I checked my ticket and it says 10Kg for handbag not 8 Kg referenced here , any changes recently ?

tff

It's 10kg.