Except for flying with the big discounters, has anyone had their personal item sized or weighed? If so, what airline and the circumstance if possible.
Edit...I'm not asking about your main carry on. I'm asking about the small personal item most people take in addition to the main carry on.
Ryanair! Join the line. At the boarding gate everyone was herded into a single file line to have each and every item being carried onto the aircraft scrutinized for size conformity.
I've had TAP weigh carryon and personal item combined. Not quite what you're asking, but it has made me more careful about checking weight and measurements of both items.
Icelandair when leaving from Seattle. This has happened once in several flights. They do make announcements every flight out of Seattle.
Anything goes when departing from Keflavik.
Air New Zealand multiple flights both long haul and within New Zealand.
From Seattle, Iceland Air is very strict and on at least my last 5 or 6 flights to Iceland, they have weighed the personal item of every passenger, even Saga class. If it is questionable at all, you will need to put it in the sizer as well.
Yes. Aer Lingus Heathrow to Dublin. Everyone boarding had the combined weight of carry on and personal item weighed. They announced that carry ons must fit in the sizer but did not see anyone having to use it. I have flown the route since then and it seems to have been a one time occurrence.
BA from LHR to EDI. They said my 30 L backpack was too big to be a personal item so I had to check my carry on suitcase and count the backpack as my carryon.
Turkish Airlines from Zagreb to Istanbul. Our bag was 1K over and we had to check it.
Also, Ryan Air from Zagreb to Malta. They didn’t weigh it but we had to put it in the sizer. Because it was too big for under the seat, we had to pay to put it in the overhead.
Never on a trans-Atlantic flight. Neither the small personal item nor the carry-on , weighed or size measured. The 2 pieces pass the TV scanner, never questioned other than usual perfunctory questions .
I had my handbag weighed by Qantas flying from NZ to Australia on the weekend. They claimed that it counted towards my 7kg carry on allowance (even though their website says a 7kg bag plus a personal item). My handbag weighed 1kg and they said I would have to check my 7kg bag as I now had a total of 8kg.
They did begrudgingly let me through when said I would have to go away and sort through it all to locate battery packs, medicine etc.
Once a friend of mine got it checked when flying with Tunis Air (they weighted it). Another time, I was flying with Sky express and they checked the backpack of another guy (he also had an 8kg suitcase with him). But almost no one checks it tbh.
On Jetstar, pretty much every time (in combination with my main carry-on for weight). Not an airline to roll the dice with!
Less frequently but on occasion: Singapore Airlines out of Sydney, especially after the turbulence incident a few years ago where luggage fell out of the overhead and caused major injuries. Check was mainly for potentially overweight personal items as a result of transferring stuff from carry-ons to meet the 8kg weight limit - oddly, the solution was usually to carry a laptop sleeve or camera separately rather than pay to check something (I guess because the offending items couldn't really be checked in).
In Europe: Lufthansa, Swiss, LOT and KLM at irregular intervals, but my main airport is primarily small planes so that tracks. Though I've been pulled up in Munich and Zurich too. For the record, I've only ever had my personal item weighed or examined when my carry-on was large-ish and especially with wheels. (My preferred personal item bag is small enough that I've never actually been pinged - I'm just very short so an acceptable bag can e.g. look visually too big against my torso. Same with my carry-on).
Oh, and Easyjet at Gatwick, several times but not recently.
