Big backpacks + Awkward Airlines

rymus

I'm travelling to Canada in January and have been (in a hugely paranoid manner) looking up the various airlines cabin baggage allowances. I'm flying Cork to Amsterdam via Aer Lingus and Onward to Canada via KLM.

It seems the Aer Lingus allowance is less than half of KLM's, which leads me to believe that I'm going to have to leave half of my gear at home for the duration of the 3 week trip. Boo urns!

Aer Lingus allow 6kg in a bag sized 23cms x 35cms x 46cms

KLM allow 13kg in a bag sized 25 x 35 x 55cm

My bag is currently 11kg and is sized 13.5 x 33 x 48 cm, it's a lowepro computrekker plus. Hello conundrum. It'd get onto KLM no bother but of course and as per usual, Aer Lingus poses a problem. So, anyone with a similarly sized bag or backpack ever succeed in getting through the security screening?

I'm going to give KLM a call in the coming week as I think the way it works is Aer Lingus are operating the flight for KLM so there might be some leeway. Somehow I think that's just false hope though.

Anyone with similar experiences of getting large hand luggage onto flights with restrictive policies?

Dimy

At least from Dublin the flights to Amsterdam are a cooperation between Aer Lingus and KLM, you can book the same flight on the KLM site. But maybe the difference between allowance is the fact that the Amsterdam to Canada flight is an intercontinental flight and much bigger planes.
I'm not sure if you would book both flights at KLM you get the same terms and conditions.

parsi

I'm just back from a trip to Barcelona and the whole hand-baggage thing seems to vary widly. Bags of your size were definitely on all the flights I was on - Ryanair, BA, Aer Lingus. On a trip last month my hand-baggage with EI was larger than yours.

This time around in Gatwick a jobsworth was stopping people with more than one piece of hand baggage but his colleagues were allowing similar quantities. In Heathrow the Transfer queue beside mine had to remove their shoes but our queue didn't.

One thing to note is that if the flight is full they may make you drop your bag into the hold (coming back from Barcelona with BA they announced that as much as possible should be put under seats).

rymus

when booking the flights I made the choice not to travel through the UK as it was pointed out to me that any airport I'd travel through there would be sticklers for hand baggage. I can always transfer some of the stuff into the smaller tamrac bag I have but I wanted to bring the larger lowepro cos it's a hell of a lot more comfortable.

Ahh I'll make a few calls tomorrow and see what I can come up with.

Dundhoone

I flew to new york with aer lingus with a lowepro rover aw2 (similar size to yours) as my hand luggage last april
They didnt weigh it - although I'd say I only had maybe 4-5kg of camera kit, I had a few other bits in the carry space on top, so it was fairly heavy.

I dont think they are too strict about it, I've seen people bring huge bags on as carry on , plus a few bags loads of duty free.

All the same, do you really need 11kgs of kit ??......I suppose thats a silly question really!:)

rymus

well no.. I'll trim a few kilos off that. May even end up using the smaller tamrac. All I really want to bring is the 30D, 70-200, 24-70, 10-20 and the backup drive... Which err, is almost everything

evilhomer

From my experience, they never weigh hand luggage (I used to work in Dublin airport, in my college years).

I have brought very heavy hand luggage on flights without a problem.

If it fits within the dimensions specified you should have no problem.

rymus

I was kinda wondering about that. Last time I was in Canada (went via same route & airlines) I brough back a quite heavy hand luggage bag. Wasnt weighed once, although the security people in Canada did spend an age looking through it.

I did notice that practically all the airlines specify that you must be able to lift your own hand luggage into the overhead bin, so I presume I'll be ok. If the worst comes to it I'll split the load between my hand luggage and the missus' bag. Then when we get onboard I'll load it all back in. Groovy. Freaking out about nothing :rolleyes:

MyStuffForSale

Did a big trip recently with 11 kilos of hand luggage.

At Aer Lingus check-in Dublin they did not check weight of my bag. I'd taken half of gear out and given to family while I checked in, so if they had requested to weigh it would have been underweight. In my experience they never query weight at security, other than if the bag is obviously over sized. Was flying via Heathrow. Had all my tickets to final destination, luggage also checked through, so just a matter of going to transit desk once at Heathrow.

Did have slight problem flying with Singapore Airlines, when an overly officious check-in person asked to weigh bag and then requested I place some gear in my suitcase, which I did. Not a happy flight fearing gear would we be robbed or damaged. Everything ok in end, but I'll never do that again.

Enjoy the trip.

run_Forrest_run

nice selection of gear...and I am soo jealous now...I would love to go back to Canada for a while! Enjoy the trip and pack yer woolies.

JMcL

Have you thought about getting a coat with a large number of deep pockets and offloading heavy lenses etc into that until you get past checkin? I believe quite a few pros adopt this approach.

eas

rymus wrote:

I'm travelling to Canada

sorry, bit off topic - where you going (in Canada) rymus?

rymus

Montreal and Quebec City

eas

rymus wrote:

Montreal and Quebec City

great choice!

have you been to either before?

I assumed for some reason you where more a nature guy tho.

rymus

I've been to Montreal and Ottawa before, never to Quebec city. We'll probably head up to the mountains for some ski related fun too. That'll be after coming back from Cuba of course

mervifwdc

Sorry for chipping in late.
I've taken to using pelicases, the 1510 specifically. I have 2 of them, and I wheel one on, and my poor suffering wife brings the other. As they look industrial, I do get comments at check in, but I often wear clothes with a lot of pockets to allow me move the weight about a bit.
I've yet to have an airline refuse the 1510.

What I like is that I could check them in if push came to shove, and would not be worried about damage or moisture (anyone ever gotten a wet bag at the collection carolsel - I have.).

Merv.

cutepape

Late response but, never had my hand luggage weigh before.
I always have my Crumpler Farmers double with me fully packed.

Buying a new dSLR after new years so will probably start looking at the Peli cases.

JMcL

cutepape wrote:

Late response but, never had my hand luggage weigh before.
I always have my Crumpler Farmers double with me fully packed.

I've found it depends greatly on where you are checking in. Ryanair's checkin staff at Standsted were completely anal (at least a few years ago). I was using them a fair bit at that stage, and they seemed to weigh all hand baggage regardless, and woe betide you if you were 10g overweight. Cue having to transfer stuff into already overstuffed checked bags, with an ever lengthening queue behind. Thats the worst I've ever seen. I don't think I've ever had any problems in Dublin, Paris etc.