I fly almost exclusively to/from Asia. There are certain airports (HKG, in particular) that do impose a Draconian limit, but usually only for coach flights, which I am rarely flying in, long haul.

I do fly low cost Asian carriers on relatively short haul flights (less than 5 hours), and have the same amount of carry-on weight. I've come across the odd problem with weight, but usually no problem.

If space is the problem, then size limits would be more appropriate than weight limits.

Regarding those airlines with 8kg weight limits, don't most of them include a checked bag at no extra cost (at least flying to/from Asia)?

"nanny state", that's hilarious! Give me the conditions of flying in Europe, Asia or Australasia any day over the third-world conditions those poor b*stards suffer when being forced to fly in the US.

You want "nanny state" , try customs at LAX, except it would be an insult to nannies.

By and large, travelling with one of these and one of these I don't have a problem, and neither do most people I see. I think we'd just tend to remember those times when we do have a problem.

Very true. I've just returned from two weeks in central Europe with only carry-on luggage; on the outbound trip my bag weighed exactly 8 kg, but it was the maximum legal size for a carry-on (and it was full).

While I hate RJs and prefer to fly on larger planes for comfort reasons, I've noticed the RJs rarely have bin wars. Their bins are so small that everyone knows they are going to have to gate-check their larger carryons, and they're prepared for that. Plus, those bags are always returned planeside, so the gate check isn't such an inconvenience. The real bin stampedes occur on the bigger planes in Y class; everyone knows they're playing a game of Musical Chairs and if they're the last to board they may have to gate check a carryon that would have fit in the bin if they'd only boarded earlier. And sometimes those involuntarily checked bags aren't returned planeside but get offloaded on the luggage carousel, which is a disaster if you have a connection to make. No wonder things are getting nasty!

I do wish the airlines would shift to one free checked bag + pay for a bin carryon. But I don't see that happening, as they'd have to hire more baggage handlers and gate agents to make that approach work. It's all about the money in the end.

All these ideas of silly limitations...they don't matter! None of it would make a difference because the biggest issue is that the current limitations are not enforced. Make the carryon limit 1kg, it won't matter because there is no one in the airport checking to make sure people are following the size and weight restrictions for their bags.

A smarter solution would be to charge for any carryon that doesn't fit under a seat, even if it's a nominal fee of $10. The issue there is increased boarding times while trying to charge people.

The best I've ever seen was a flight where after changing planes the crew was at risk of going illegal. They told everyone that they had 15 minutes to board, watching the terror on all the faces as passengers zoomed past my seat and into the plane was amazing. They had the gate agent and FA's counting down the time ("nine minutes left!" "six minutes left!"), and it worked. The whole plane boarded, got their bags into the bins, and seated themselves in time. No one worried about overhead bin space and everything fit.

Every time I fly a US carrier I have a shocked bump back to the reality of how truly awful it is to fly in the US these days, compared to the rest of the world.

There's a reason why LH can turn full Airbii twins in under 20 minutes.

And it doesn't even require weight limits (I don't believe that BA has them for carry on?). But with zero enforcement, the mentality won't change. I've seen people with 22 inch carry on with the expander opened, stuff to the gills, and a 'personal' item such a large laptop case, and a shopping bag from the airport, never stopped or challenged. UA does that silly annoucement 'offering' to check a bag at the gate. Don't offer, just tell people 'NO!' when they try and bring their houses on board.

Maybe the real answer is to address the real cause of the problem. Everyone focuses on the this idea that people carry on too much stuff to fit in the overhead bins. So fix the reason why (a) they carry on too much stuff, and (b) why it doesn't all fit.

There used to not be a huge problem with carry-ons, back in the day when airlines weren't full and people weren't worried about being stuck somewhere for 3 days. But today they have crammed more people into planes without including m,ore storage space and without any room for flexibility when trips go awry. So to fix the problem, first give up a row of seats for a luggage storage monument to give more storage space on the plane, and either improve operations so no one is worried about getting stranded or better yet, give them a way to put their luggage in the storage hold, but be able to retrieve it when getting off the plane, like they do on RJs. Then people would not be so worried about having all their luggage with them.

The other thing I think airlines, and investors, need to wrap their mind around is that airplanes don't just make money while in the air. People pay for the whole trip, not just air time. They don't know or care about how long their plane is sitting on the ground before they get there, but they do care about the fact that they lost control of their luggage and that they missed their flight and that flights got delayed because scheduling is too tight.

I misunderstood your post; I thought you were advocating an 8kg limit for any carry-on item. My apologies.

But people do carry to much. Have you seen a US plane lately? Put a cutting machine at the gate which removes excess space from the bag.

I think that the problem, to some extent, have been around for a long time. Families always needed a lot of things (games, diapers, and so on). I don't understand why gate checked luggage is not available immediately after deboarding.

For an investor all those things cost money. Quite a lot of money. As an investor I don't care about what you want, I care about what you are willing to pay for. As checked luggage has a fee to it I would assume having a higher (much higher) fee for gate checking over sized luggage (and always doing so) would be a better solution. Some people do have legitimate reasons to carry a lot of items, but most are just to cheap or lazy to check it. Considering my bag which is 50% of max. reg. fits several extra shirts, a pair of shorts, a pair of pants, a towel, underwear, computer, iPad, 2 phones, chargers, books, medications when travelling far and so on I doubt anyone is required to carry more. Some people certainly want to carry more because they don't want to stand in a line after the plane, but if you can't fit it in the box thought luck.

It's not that people are taking any more with them then they used to - most people take less because it is much easier these days to get stuff when you arrive. It's WHERE they are taking it. Maybe one solution would be to charge for carry-on items and not for checked baggage.

While I agree that this is how many investors think, it is rather short sighted and I would say part of the cause of much of this mess. They only see $$$'s, and can't figure out how those relate to the customer experience. Meanwhile, the customer doesn't see the $$$'s and quite frankly doesn't give a hoot about the companies bottom line - after all if they are profitable it is at the expense of the customer, right?

I don't mean to be antagonistic about this, but that really is a very snobby attitude, that I see from a number of "expert" flyers. It's fine if that is all you need to survive, and that that is all you need to enjoy your trip. But for most people, no that isn't enough and no that isn't going to lead to anything more than a miserable week (and I might suggest frequent travelers think a little more about how inoften you change your clothes. Just saying. Yes, people do notice). Like I said, fine if that is how you want to travel and doing so makes you feel extra special, but don't push your minimalist travel preference on everyone else. If the problem is ties up in boarding time, fine ways to let people not have to put everything in the overhead bin.

Sometimes people do pack too much, but sometimes it is really unavoidable.

Try traveling from Southern California to nearly anywhere else in the country in the middle of the winter. It's hard not to pack quite a bit. I can do it with a standard size rollaboard, but it isn't exactly easy and it has taken me years to figure out how to do it for a 5 to 7 day trip while having sufficient clothing that I'm not recycling through already worn items.

And in such cases, I prefer not to check my luggage, as there is a limit to the amount of clothing I can comfortably wear on the plane. When you're leaving temperatures in the '70s heading for the teens, you'd be mighty cold awful quick if your luggage got lost and facing exorbitant replacement costs.

Summer travel is easy and if you need/forget something, the cost is minimal. But winter travel is often challenging for those living in warmer areas who have to venture into a cold climate in winter and lost luggage on such a trip is an absolute nightmare.

The Big Panic to Find Overhead Storage Space
 

I've actually used space saver bags to pack more clothes into my carry-on. The only thing is the carry-on ends up weighing a ton.

I understand that you cannot travel for weeks with only a T-shirt. I check luggage when I'm gone for a long time (or actually I almost always check bags) but my response was aimed at a comment about needing to carry clothes due to delays caused by short connections. Sometimes you will need suits and so on, but most of the time the non-frequent flyer travelling to a holiday destination will not require more than a couple of basic things. Most bags airlines have misplaced for me have turned up within 12hrs, all within 24hrs.