British Airways strictness for personal item size

So long as one of your 2 items can fit under the seat in front of you, you shouldn’t have a problem. Putting both items in the overhead bin is discourteous to your fellow passengers.

Except for me. I am very special and the rules shouldn't apply to me - just to the other passengers on my flights.

It can vary based on the size of BA’s aircraft as the space in the overhead bins is more generous on jumbo jets than regional jets for example. A personal item like a purse can fit under the seat in front of you.

British Airways personal item size is 16 X 12 X 6. I've always adhered to this measurement. Sometimes they make the customer go to the desk and have the personal item tagged if it qualifies as a personal item, and also so it is noticeable if it is incorrectly placed in the overhead bin. Admittedly, I don't know what they are doing since covid.

We traveled Premium Economy out of Seattle last year through LHR to Bologna. Both our carryon bags fit the criteria. My personal item was fine. My husband had a backpack larger than the size limitations but not huge-might be a 22L or so. They tagged it for cabin luggage. We are going again soon and hoping for the same result. The backpack was not fully loaded so don’t know if that made a difference. Push come to shove, it would have fit under the seat. Out of LHR, however, we did gate check our carryon bags.

They may not check or they may. It depends on how full the flight is, type of plane, where you're sitting (class of service) and the gate agent.

The allowance is 16 x 12 x 6 inches or 40 x 30 x 15 cm.

I flew British Airways RT Seattle--London last summer. My personal item was this Eddie Bauer 25L Stowaway Backpack (but in the much nicer color on the right here). It's 17x12x6, so a little bit bigger than BA's listed dimensions. I do think the dimensions may be more important than the volume since they have very high weight limits of 23kg for each cabin carry-on. My pack was not filled to capacity and I wore it without any questioning or tagging. At about 7lbs it was easy for me to manage. It fit fine under the seat in front of me.

One thing I like about BA is that their carry-on size is 22x18x10. So I used my smaller volume (38L) but easy to pack 2-wheeled Osprey Ozone Global 20x16x8 bag. Packed weight was my usual limit of 20lbs.

Here's the link to BA's baggage info: https://www.britishairways.com/en-us/information/baggage-essentials

British Airways strictness for personal item size

Extremely.

We have flown United, British Air, and Lufthansa out of Denver. Lufthansa was the strictest regarding weight. Unfortunately you cannot assume that if you are over size or weight that it will not be checked. What is the back up plan if your bag is rejected? The greatest risk probably is at the check-in counter. I have seen check-ins where every item is weighed and tagged. So I would just plan to be in compliance.

It partly depends on who is working the check-in counter. I’ve been on flights where the agent was extremely strict and others where it didn’t seem to matter. On our last flight we each had a small suitcase that went into the overhead bin and a backpack (not overstuffed) that went under the seat and it wasn’t an issue. We were flying premium economy so boarded while there was still plenty of overhead bin space.