Australian airlines will be enforcing carry-on luggage limits from today to curb flight delays and eliminate health and safety issues for cabin crew.
Both Qantas and Virgin Australia are joining the low-cost airlines, Tiger and Jetstar in enforcing limits that have been in place for over 20 years but never policed.
The standard limit is 7kg and the bag size is a linear measurement of 115cm bag which is, for example, 56cm + 36cm + 23cm.
However, on the smaller Dash 8 aircraft the size is 105cm or 48cm + 34cm + 23cm.
This can be a tricky issue for passengers who for instance are traveling from Perth to Dubbo via Sydney as they will be moving from a larger 300-passengers A330 to a smaller Dash 8 or similar so the smaller bag size is the limiting factor.
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The crackdown on the carry-on baggage by Australian airlines has been forced on them because of the increasing amount being taken on as passengers try and avoid delays retrieving checked bags.
That extra carry-on and the resultant problems with stowage in the overhead bins is delaying flights both in boarding the also unloading.
With some aircraft in the Qantas and Virgin Australia fleets operating up to seven flights a day a 15-minute delay because of slow boarding can mean the last flight of the day may be running over an hour late.
Compounding the problem for Australian airlines is that Sydney Airport is a slot constrained airport with movements capped at 80 per hour.
If a flight is late getting away it may miss its slot and be delayed even longer, sometimes up to 30 minutes.
The other major factor is the weight of the carry-on bags with many passengers unable to lift more than 7kg above their heads and into the overhead bins.
This requires the fight attendants to become involved, raising serious health and safety issues.
One solution is that airlines allow a “personal item” as well and that can be a small thin bag to take your computer which can weigh over 2kg.
Also, those with expensive camera equipment should purchase a specific bag just to take the SLR and also those spare lithium batteries which must travel with you and not in the cargo hold.
Airlines will not be enforcing the limits on every flight but selected flights.
However, if you are clearly flouting the rules you will be pulled over.
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