Aer Lingus carry on

Have you read the cabin baggage allowance on the Aerlingus website? It is quite clear that the maximum allowance for a carry-on suitcase is 21.5" x 9.5" x 15.5" plus one small personal bag maximum 10" x 13" x 8".

Aer Lingus staff walk around the boarding area looking for carry-ons that seem larger than allowed and they will ask you to put them in the sizer before boarding. If they don't fit you will be told they have to be checked (I didn't notice whether the passengers had to pay a checked bag fee at that point).

Thanks
i think we are just going to check everything but Grams (ashes)... she has to be a carry on. I think with having her trying to have the others would just be too much stress. Plus 1 bag on the buses will be easier too... Now to keep or return the bag. LOL

FWIW, our experience in May was different than Peter's. I saw no one from Aer Lingus paying the slightest attention to people's bags. We had to check our carry-ons from Dublin to Venice, but that was because of limited overhead space, not because our bags were too big. I used the Euro Flight Bag as my personal item under the seat. While its stated dimensions are larger than Aer Lingus standards, it's a soft bag that squishes down if not jammed full.

Whether or not you have trouble with Aer Lingus or not depends on where you're flying from and whether the plane is very full. We took a round trip flight from CDG to Dublin one weekend out of our vacation in France to see friends. Leaving from Paris was no problem at all (our bags are within the correct size, so that was never an issue, and I had weighed them in the US to make sure we were under the weight limits). Also the French don't seem to be nit-picky. When we tried to return to Paris from Dublin, however, we came up against a very rigid gate agent. The size was never the issue, but the weight became a problem because after two weeks things had gotten shifted around. I somewhat irritably told the agent I wouldn't be checking it went back to the seating area and put my liquids baggie and e-reader in my coat pocket. The bag-size check gizmo also has a scale in it, so I verified that I was now under the weight limit and went back to board. In the end, there was no lack of overhead space once we boarded, and my husband still feels we were singled out. I had less trouble with RyanAir when it came to cabin baggage, but I now know to be cautious of any of the European carriers -- even BA can be stringent.