Strapping items to carry on bags?
 

Is it generally okay to strap items to a carry on bag or do the airlines try to charge extra for that? In my case I want to strap my rollerblades to my backpack.

That is a broad question and thus a broad answer is all you will get.

The general answer is that it has nothing to do what is inside the bag or strapped to it. Rather, the item must meet the dimensions prescribed by the carrier. This will often be represented by a "sizer" at check-in, the gate, and elsewhere.

Bottom line - Measure the entire package and determine whether it is "legal."

Wear them as your shoes, seriously. My husband was renting a motorcycle in the UK and wore his helmet as a hat. He felt ridiculous getting on the plane but he had "his" helmet and didn't have to wear a used one that was not to his taste.

Yes - airline ground staff never question me when it comes to items strapped to the outside of my backpack.

I have a Patagonia Snowdrifter when I love because it has external straps on all 3x sides plus a cross-shoulder strap. I put a yoga mat on the front, large lumbar pillow on the side, and water bottle on the other side. A fleece jacket can go on the cross-shoulder area so it's basically behind your neck. It's basically another 15L worth of items strapped to a 30L backpack - never hear a peep from gate agents (including international locations) when I walk onboard with backpack plus hardside spinner.

It is not generally OK to abuse systems put in place for the benefit/comfort/convenience of all, just to make your own life easier. Even if the airline in question lets you get away with it you'll still be out of order.

If a physical sizer is used then I should be okay.

I was also contemplating putting everything in a slightly too large duffel bag. I could temporarily roll up one side to get to to squish into a sizer.

Air Asia allos one carry on sized 56 x 36 x 23 cm plus one handbag, https://www.klia2.info/airlines/airasia-baggage-info/

My duffel is 60 x 32 x 28 cm.

Now I'm not sure if the duffel is safer or a backpack plus straps.

The backpack and straps would be less bulk. The duffel would more strongly represent one "thing."

What do you guys think is safer?

Personally I would prefer the backpack and straps for easier travel but I'll use what works.

Hilarious but if your husband was able to get away with that then maybe me too.

Inline skates may represent a safety hazard though. Although if one were to ever represent a threat to crew safety, one would probably want to wear a full face helmet.

I am able to walk around in my skates in a V walk, like a hobbling penguin. Is there a risk one of the airports or the airline could still say no to this?

Now that I think about it more, it feels really risky. As a staff person I'd be concerned about injury liability.

If you were/are a GA, would you strictly enforce sizing every carry-on, just curious.

Also do you always always go the speed limit in the school zone, just curious too :D

Seriously the sizer and limitations are all things put in place to managed the limited storage and insure orderly and boarding. Various airlines obviously have both safety and logistics that guide how strictly they enforce it, what routes and times. International airlines seem very strict with weight, but more lenient or even blinding eye on additional duty free items that if summed would bust their weight limits.

On the original topic, I feel this is totally YMMV, meet a crazy strict GA they will hold you one item in the sizer, and one personal item, maybe they could add the scale and weight too for some foreign carriers. I've seen them enforce the sizer but allow instruments, duty free bags that make carryone items count as high as 6 get on, no hard fast rule, just be ready to check in your roller board

I've flown a couple times with my inline skates, though not recently. The flights in question were on NW, say 2002-2003-ish, I think. Round tripped DTW <-> DEN, then another trip DTW <-> SIN. Both times, if I recall, I flew outbound with my skate bag as a carry-on and then checked it on return. Noone batted an eye, but, again, this was ages ago.

I have a skate bag like this:

(Hmm, turns out I can't post URLs yet. Search "transpack expo skate bag".)

In general, it functions well enough as a skate bag in that it sensibly stores the intended items (skate, helmets, pads), but it is a bit awkward and unbalanced. It served its purpose OK as a carry-on, but it is definitely a gear-specific kind of solution, and I certainly wouldn't recommend it as a more general purpose bag.

I don't skate any more (discouraged by doctors due to ankle injury), but if I were to fly with skates again, I'd use my existing bag or get something like this:

(Search "transpack sidekick pro".)

I like the looks of that style better. (Though I shouldn't skate any more, I can still snowboard.) There's another style of bag I've seen that also hangs the skates/boots on the exterior, but places them more centered on the back and not out to the sides.

In short, there are a couple skate/boot specific solutions out there.

Penalising just the blatant abusers would be sufficient eg the ones with rollaboards the size of regular suitcases or personal items the size of rollaboards or two items instead of one. Tieing stuff on the outside sounds just as bad to me and they all show selfishness which is not an attractive trait.

I think it's okay.

Some weeks I need to travel with a hard hat to do site visits. I always strap it to my top backpack handle.

I am always able to get on the plane with my backpack my roller board and my hard hat attached to my backpack.

It all fits under the seat in front of me if needed. Plus, I figure if I'm ever challenged on it I'll just wear the hard hat onto the plane as my super cool fashion accessory.

Only thing I find is people ask you what kind of work you do way more while you are traveling with a hard hat than not.

Way back in the 1990s I knew a guy who brought his track bicycle on a plane by checking the wheels, pedals, handlebars, and saddle in a bag as regular luggage (which was free at the time) and putting the frame in a suit bag and carrying it on to hang in the closet. Track bikes don't have any cables, so it it's easy to separate all the parts and only takes a few minutes to put it completely back together.

We did this when we brought our cats over a couple of months ago. Food & bowls, vet paperwork, a couple of toys + some throwaway litter boxes all attached in some way to their carriers. (Technically the carriers were sitting in the unopened disposable boxes.) The agent told us that it was completely fine as long as everything was within the allowed weight limit. We were just shy of it, but already knew that before arriving. I don't care how ridiculous we probably appeared to strangers. Having those throwaway boxes when we first arrived helped a ton.