I have been on many flights where only the personal item (Laptop, umbrella, coat) were allowed and the 22" x 14" x 9" carryon was required to be checked (usually planeside)

This seems to be more restrictive than the official TSA rule requires. I'm not taking about small prop planes (i.e. SAAB's)

Why isn't the 1 carryon plus 1 personal item rule observed consistently throughout the country?

This has happened a lot on CO and also Amnerican and United in California.

Haven't had this problem come up on Northwest.

[This message has been edited by Radiocycle (edited 07-31-2002).]

[This message has been edited by Radiocycle (edited 07-31-2002).]

For the same reason that I often see people wheeling a roll aboard with them as well as a large backpack and a shopping bag. It's very inconsistent on both sides, which is ashame because when you have to enforce the policy because space is running out, you always have one or two people that use the old "they let me carry it on my last flight".

Which airline? Are you an early or late boarder?

If you board while there is room, I would surely print out the policy from the airlines web site and take it with you. Personally, and you will many others have not had a problem.

Tell us more.

I have never had this problem and I fly AA a lot in California (about 120+ segments a year).

Maybe you have just been really unlucky?

I took a flight back in January where I was carrying a laptop bag, a rollaboard, an umbrella, a parka/coat, and a bag of airport food. That's the most I'd probably ever carry on.

The worst place to go is HKG Chep Lap Kok.

There they have a force of lady security guards who police all bags. This however very scr*wed up. Because they have that famous scale with rack combination. And many people have that maximum size rolling trolley suitcase. Usually these fit the rack, but in HKG the rack also measures the handle, thus you are rejected. However, people with soft bags can of course get their roller inside, then they have a bag on top of that (popular combination is the Samsonite roller with carry bag). Not allowed according to the sign, but not policed. Anybody have a good idea about how to bypass all these checks?

This has been discussed at length elsewhere, but in summary if you are flying CX and have any status on OneWorld then you can ask them at check-in for an "orange tag". This indicates to the security people (who will stop you and detach part of it) that, although your bag may be a little oversize, the airline is prepared to leave it to the discretion of the cabin crew as to whether it will have to be checked. In practice since CX only flies wide-body aircraft with apparently more stowage space per person I have never seen an ornage-tagged bag pulled off at the gate and sent below.

Personally I have flown many, many times out of HKG with a carryon bag which is marginally over the CX limits for size (and often way over for weight) and I have never been stopped, even when I forgot to ask for the orange tag. Wearing a suit also seems to help.

If you have CX Diamond then the official carry-on policy in all classes now allows a rollalong (22x14x9, max 15kg), plus a laptop (max 4kg), plus a briefcase (max 4kg), plus coat, umbrella, camera, etc. Oh - plus 40-60kg in the hold. That seems quite reasonable to me

By the way, there are other airports in Asia (particularly Singapore) which are just as strict, if not more so.

Around a couple of years, many Asian airlines went on a one carryon only policy. During this time, I was stopped at the gate on a EVA connecting flight in TPE with my laptop bag and my rollaboard which was 21x14x9. I had to gate check in the rollaboard despite being able to carry them on at SFO and despite my EVA Gold (mid tier) status.

EVA seems to have remained strict about this policy, even walking around the waiting areas at TPE and SFO before boarding and asking passengers to check in bags.

Recently while flying Iberia (why did I do that) on multiple segments, carry on limites were enforced. All planes were full, very full.

However people who had shopping duty free were allowed to carry on their shlep. Anyone got any of those duty free shopping bags?

SQ has always always been incredibly lax on the carryon rule. I just took a flight this morning where they announced the restrictions at boarding and that extra bags will be gate checked. Well, not enforced! Not that I have a prob with it really, I actually fly SQ knowing that they are lax.

When I was moving from Paris to SIN a couple of years ago, I had 1 huge carry-ons which was admittedly quite heavy. I had already exceeded by baggage allowance... But at least it was just one normal sized carry on, just a had heavy. Anyway, the boarding line for the plane had loads of people with multiple carry-ons, such that the french gate agents were making snide remarks about how terribly it was that people are carrying so much stuff on the plane. Boo hoo. The FAs didn't care, and they were absolutely helpful to everyone in helping to load stuff in the bins.