All of the short haul flights I’ve taken recently have been fairly relaxed about carry on baggage, from a size perspective. Are tranatlantic flight equally easy going?

Going for a week, and aiming to pack everything into one 30l rucksack. If squashed a wee bit, it fits within the stated dimensions ok.

United airlines if that makes any difference.

United airlines

I’d be packing everything into one carry-on bag and not letting it out of my sight. 🙂

That’s the idea really. Also don’t have to wait at the other end for reclaim.

That won’t make a difference to your time through the airport. Immigration will make you queue for a lifetime. May as well use the hold luggage allowance.

Depends on the class, with Business you can pretty much carry on what you like, but in Economy, they can be a lot more strict.

Flying to us ? Your bags will be at reclaim before you

Does boarder really take that long over there? Anyway will still be quicker on the way back.

Your bags will be at reclaim before you

Depends on the airport and the class of travel.

IAD, SFO, LAX and LAS? Always through quickly. Glorious, in fact, especially LAX, where I was personally escorted through it all.
BOS, JFK? Less so.

All with gold card and business class.

Not with United, mind you….

depends on how rucksackky your bag is, and wether the check in staffer is a dick.

Blimey CFH, you seem well traveled!

IAD, and well away from any peak time, so hoping it will be a smooth run through.

BigRich, I’m planning of missing checkin staff by doing it online before leaving home. Thats really why I’m checking with STW travelers. Don’t want to end up in trouble at the boarding gate.

The one time I flew hand luggage only to the US (Chicago) we were grabbed as we exited the baggage hall and taken away for special searches and questioning. I guess we stood out as unusual.

We’d only gone to see a gig. When I explained this to the customs officer she asked me where my instrument was. I was confused.

(Not that special, no gloves or lubrication required).

Flying to NZ the girl at the desk spotted my half-full 44L bag I was going to take carry-on. It would have fit within the regulation dimensions but was 11 kg and should have been under 7 kg 😐

Ah, didn’t realise there was a weight limit. Better dig the scales out. Might drop a bike or two on them while I’m at it 😉

IAD, and well away from any peak time, so hoping it will be a smooth run through.

Nope. Worse. Sequestration means that wage budgets were an easy thing to slash, so they man the controls more during peak hours. Even the crew were there for an hour last time I came through.

Beginning to wish I’d never asked!

IAD, and well away from any peak time, so hoping it will be a smooth run through.

Yep, as TooTall says, IAD is a shocker now. An absolute shocker. Sorry.

I fly quite often and they do tend to weigh carry on baggage although it seems to be only the budget airlines that get obsessive about the physical size of your carry on.

Don’t forget you’ll have to leave all sharp things behind if you only have carry on.

At least with check in luggage you can take your nail clippers and pen knife.

I fly quite often and they do tend to weigh carry on baggage although it seems to be only the budget airlines that get obsessive about the physical size of your carry on.

In this part of the world you can get intercepted by the airport staff more commonly – have seen this in the queue for passports at Auckland, Melbourne and Sydney. They weigh your hand baggage and check for size then send you back to the airline desks.
Melb and Syd in particular, mainly heading to NZ, are hot on hand luggage weight. There are a few ways round it mainly along the lines of when they say please put it on the weigh belt at check in just hold onto it and dont put all the weight on – I managed to get a 22kg bag through that way when i was going to a race – it was small but v heavy as all batteries, lights, pedals etc. And this is not budget airlines either. The only exception i have found is when you fly business or PE where nobody seems to care and you get fastracked anyway.
When i left LHR on Sunday night the queue for the security was, no joke, about 2km long. I started queuing in the next building ! Took an hour to get through.