OPINION
As a relatively experienced traveller, I frequently find myself either pushing my luck or falling foul of carry-on baggage rules.
It rarely makes sense. I check in early. I’m at the gate with a bit of time to spare. Then I board, stroll down the aisle… and discover the overhead lockers are already jammed. Cabin crew are playing luggage Tetris, tempers are fraying, and the familiar announcement comes: some bags will need to go in the hold.
That’s when the quiet panic starts. Will mine be one of them? Did I miss a rule? Did I book the wrong fare?
And this, I think, is where air travel has become needlessly confusing. And from next week, it’s only going to get worse.
On the surface, new carry-on limits, such as those taking effect next week with Virgin Australia, make sense. Too much cabin baggage delays departures, can injure crew members, and can become a genuine safety issue in an emergency. I’m all for clearer rules and lighter loads.
But clearer doesn’t always mean simpler – at least not for passengers.
From February 2, Virgin Australia’s domestic economy passengers will be allowed one standard carry-on bag up to 8kg, plus a small personal item under the seat. Reasonable enough.
Except that’s not the rule if you’re flying Qantas. Or Jetstar. Or flying internationally. Or flying the same plane, on the same route, but having paid a different price for your ticket.
You can fly from Sydney to Melbourne on a Boeing 737 – the same aircraft – and face entirely different carry-on limits depending on the airline and the fare you bought. Qantas allows a mix of items up to 14kg. Jetstar caps it at 7kg. Virgin sits somewhere in between.
If you’re a traveller, it’s hard not to ask: how can the same plane suddenly “handle” different bags just because I paid more or less?
The answer, frustratingly, lives in the fine print.
Every aircraft has a strict maximum take-off weight. That includes the plane itself, fuel, food, cargo, crew, passengers – and baggage. Checked bags are weighed, but carry-on usually isn’t. Instead, regulators allow airlines to use standard average weights for passengers and their cabin bags.
Those averages have changed over time as people, on average, have become heavier. Today, the assumed carry-on weight is 7kg per passenger – but airlines can apply to use their own figures, with approval from the safety regulator.
That’s how we end up with different rules for different airlines. And that’s before you factor in fare types.
In the age of low-cost flying, your ticket often only buys you a seat and little else. Everything beyond that – checked luggage, extra carry-on, seat selection – has become “ancillary revenue”. And it’s big business. Eye-wateringly big.
So it’s no surprise many passengers try to avoid extra fees by packing everything into carry-on. Airlines know this too, which is why limits are tightening and enforcement is getting tougher. Jetstar has been well-versed in this behaviour virtually since day one.
Some travellers don’t understand that safety is the rationale behind it all, and from a safety perspective, it’s understandable. Heavy bags can hurt cabin crew backs. Bulging lockers slow boarding. And in emergencies, people stopping to grab luggage has been shown to delay evacuations – and has had deadly consequences in some instances.
Russian airline Aeroflot found this out the hard way back in 2019 when a lightning strike on a regional flight caused a crash landing and 41 of the 73 passengers onboard to perish. This number could have been far lower if the evacuation process had not been slowed by some travellers insisting on taking their luggage from the burning wreckage.
What confuses people isn’t the idea of limits – it’s the inconsistency. Same plane. Same distance. Different rules. Different weights. Different penalties.
The uncomfortable truth is this: the responsibility has quietly shifted to us. It’s no longer enough to assume “carry-on is carry-on”. You have to check the airline. Then the fare. Then the baggage page. Then the footnotes. It’s going to be tedious.
The best thing to do is to make sure you’re at, or under, the limit, not above. So before your next trip, weigh your bag at home. Read the fine print. Ask yourself whether that extra jumper is worth the risk of a gate-side repack in front of a line of irritated fellow passengers.
Pack lighter, not just to save money or time, but because it genuinely makes flying safer and smoother for everyone.
And if you’re ever tempted to wedge an overstuffed bag into the overhead locker, spare a thought for the cabin crew member who might have to lift it – and for the quiet chaos that can unfold when too many of us try to bring our entire lives on board.
Your flight – and your fellow passengers – will thank you.