Qantas Will Start Weighing Carry-Ons
One World Alliance Member, Qantas will be installing scales at gates in an effort to step up enforcement of carry-on weight restrictions. While many airlines have size restrictions for carry-ons, not as many have weight restrictions. I’m not aware of any carriers currently weighing passenger’s carry-ons but I wouldn’t be surprised to see more begin to do so. This is interesting because I rarely even think about the size or weight of my carry-on since most of the time no one seems to really be enforcing restrictions.
According to The Points Guy’s coverage, passengers most likely to be affected are those traveling domestically in Australia on some of the busiest routes. If their luggage is more than the allowed 30 lbs, they will have to check their bags.
Thoughts
With several American carriers raising prices and fees for checked bags this year, it would make sense for them to more strictly adhere to size and weight dimensions.
One major area of concern when it comes to your carry-ons is whether there will be overhead bin space for everyone’s bags, but I’m not sure how the weight factors into solving that age old problem.
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Actually, Philippine Airlines always weighs out carry on bags flying from MNL to LAX, but not LAX to MNL. The funny thing is, 2 trips ago, the lady at the counter made my brother in law take his laptop out of his carry on to meet the weight limit, (he has a huge Toshiba 17″ laptop), but, he just carried the laptop in his hands. Duh, he still has a total weight that’s the same lol. This was even business class. 😀
If the passenger can carry and put that carryon in the overhead bin space then I don’t understand the weight issue. If the flight attendant puts that bag in the overhead bin space (which is not a policy), then I understand the weight limit.
While I haven’t seen this in action, this doesn’t strike me as the brightest idea. Let’s say that you’re flying Qantas and for whatever reason you don’t want to check a bag, and you know that you’re likely to be over the limit. What would you do? Move stuff from your bag to your body until you’ve passed the scales, then transfer it right back. Frankly, the whole thing seems silly. If Qantas offers free checked bags, then the cost to transport the weight is the same, whether checked or carry on. If they do charge for checked bags, people will go to great lengths to avoid paying the baggage fees. Add in the inevitable delays that this will cause, and you have a pretty bad concept.