Does anyone know why when travelling from or to North America passengers are allowed two pieces of luggage at 32 kgs each.

Where as a passenger flying from Europe to anywhere else other then America is only allowed 1 piece at 20 kgs.

Seems a little unfair to me.

i have a similar question:

i have my flight PIT-LHR-HKG-LHR-PIT. the flight between PIT and LHR is on UA, flight between LHR and HKG is on aeroflot, and they are on different tickets (in order to get low fare). problem is that between LHR and HKG i have only 20kg max.

is there a way to increase the luggage allowance? thanks.

Perhaps if you show them that you are on an itinerary whose max. luggage allowance is X, that will get you by. The reason I say that is I have seen people pull out their "international" tickets in many countries to have the luggage allowance waived. Is there something in international conventions that dictate such?

1. Its referred to as the "piece concept" rather than the "weight concept". The piece concept generally applies to all int'l flights to/fr North America, as well as most transatlantic flights from Europe to the Americas (although BA just chopped this to South American destinations).

2) Its a cultural and legacy thing. Most Euro carriers were very small and very restricted/regimented, government owned. They saw this as a revenue source. Most Europeans until the very reent past did not fly scheduled airlines regularly except on business, for vacation they flew charters or drove.

3) On most carriers it is actually now 23kg, and even the strictest ones generally say nothing up to 30kg or so. Also, most top tier programmes allow an extra piece or 10-20 kg's.

4) Generally if you have an itinerary that encompasses both concepts, the piece concept wins out.

That is only true when there is no voluntary lay over in Europe.

I am allowed 2 pcs when I fly from Israel to the US, even when changing planes in Europe. But if I want to spend a day or two there, I would have to pay for the excess baggage for the TLV-Europe segment.

Buzz? (At least until they start awarding bonus miles for excess baggage charges.)

I just flew SAA last week from Cape Town and their restriction seemed to be on the number of bags rather than weight (could be that I was under the kg. restriction so they were looking for something else. With finance in tow I had five (yes, souvenirs from Africa) and had to resort to tying plastic around two bags to make it one to be within the four bag limit so as to not pay extra. This was only possible when i emptied the roll aboard of clothes so i could carry 12 bottles of fine South African wine (Thelema!) aboard and emptied my back pack so i could wrestle in a 100 lb. piece of stonework art from Zimbabwe.

I asked SAA about their Voyager award that allows members to redeem miles for extra kg. or pieces of luggage and they mentioned it wasn't used very often. My immediate comment was - well, could it be that since you have to redeem that award in advance (couple weeks) it would be difficult for most people (except traders) to know in advance if they might be over in weight/piece of luggage. They mentioned they will be working on making such an "instant" award available at the check-in counter. At that time I suspect award redemption will rise.

OK... I have to ask, how does your new fiance like being called "FINANCE"...

Could not resist Randy!

William

Ha Ha that was a good one. It might be true in some cases though.

It has to do with a treaty, or some such words. I believe it is the Warsaw treaty. It addresses how much you get if you are made dead on the plane, how much you are reimbursed if your luggage is dissapeared, etc. It deals with how much baggage you can check. "2 pc" 2 x 32kg each with a total l,w,h dimension of whatever 64 inches is in meters.

I do not know what countries are a party to this agreement, and where it applies, other than transatlantic travel to/from the USA.

[This message has been edited by slawecki (edited November 11, 2003).]

All i can say is its very diificult going away for 2 weeks with only 20 kgs. Espically for a holiday as you tend to buy atleast 10kgs of stuff on the way back!

Not just BA - Iberia have done the same. A friend of mine went to work in Peru last year, and he used to travel back and forth on Iberia via MAD, always with his full allowance of 2 x 32 kilos. He has now started travelling via MIA because of the reduced baggage allowance on the route to Madrid.


[This message has been edited by Aviatrix (edited Nov 12, 2003).]

Interesting as BA codeshares on that route with IB and they not only have a shareholding in them but have also announced that they'd like to be closer.

I flew SIN-LAX-TPE-SIN and every flight coupon listed my baggage allowance as 2PC. So despite the fact I stayed in TPE for some 2 weeks, the check-in agent honoured the piece concept once I point it out to him on my plane ticket.

My brother wasn't so lucky when he flew DTW-NRT-SIN and stayed in Tokyo for a week. A really nasty NW agent in NRT levied about USD1K in excess baggage, which my brother paid using his Citibank credit card. He disputed the charge through Citibank, plus followed up a letter to NW customer service - and we simply never heard from them demanding payment even though Citibank refused the charges.

Bee-Zahr.

Was he allowed 2 pieces?