HELP! Luggage restrictions are weighing us down......

It isn't the airport that limits what you can carry on as much as the airlines themselves. Easyjet and Ryanair both only allow one carryon item (and they mean ONE). Easyjet's limit for checked baggage is 20kg (up to eight pieces, but it all must total less than 20kg). Ryanair's limit is 15kg (up to three pieces, but it all must total less than 15kg). Perhaps when you traveled last year, the total of your two bags didn't go over the limit. In any event, both airlines charge for each piece of checked baggage. In Ryanair's case, there is a discount for declaring during the booking process that you will have a checked bag. When I last flew with Easyjet they didn't charge for checked baggage, so I'm not sure if they have the same kind of discount, but their website plainly says that each item of checked baggage will incur a fee.

If your purse won't fit into your carryon, why not pack it empty, distributing the contents in your carryon bag? Then when you arrive, you can reassemble.

A few thoughts:

1. Low fare airlines like RyanAir and EasyJet will check and will enforce the policy rigorously. It's a good portion of their revenue.
2. You got lucky last year on RyanAir, don't assume you will again.
3. As noted above, the airlines have policies, the airports don't (except for the one carry on rule).
4. Just pack less, that's all I can say.

The old adage of "pack one half of what you think you will need and take twice as much money" most certainly applies now.

Jill, Question : what is the amount of the extra fee for checking an extra bag, imposed by an airline ? I guess the issue that concerns you is the total size (volume) of the souvenirs that you will buy. That may be the reason you would use two bags. I think the allowable weight of 33 pounds is a heavy weight. Some travel bags have a weight of one pound and eight ounces when it is empty. So, use a bag that is large (maximum size for being checked) and light weight. Will you buy souvenirs that are very heavy ?

Shipping things back home would still be much more efficient and less of a hassle, and may even cost less depending on what it was, since I know people that had been charged $125 for extra luggage.

LAst year, I heavily researched sending thgs. home from the UK The upshot was that it was cheaper to pay for an extra piece of luggage on Virgin than to mail it to the USA by the Royal Mail. Their postage rates are very high (so are ours to the UK). Seems unbelievable but it is true. ANd then you have all your stuff with you immediately when you get home.

I have never flown EasyJet or Ryanair, but I did fly on FLYBE(similar) to Avignon RT last year and they did not charge me for checking my bag, but they were strict about carryons. They should have charged me but didn't.

Some of the rules on carryons are imposed by the Govt. in the UK...specifically the carryon rules which have now been eased but NOT in every airport.
Last year, the UK rules were tougher than the US ones and as I said they are easier now but this is a situation they can always change in an instant. Remember all the scenes of people throwing out all their toiletries and makeup 2 yrs. ago?

Does EasyJet have a weight requirement for carry-ons?

Charlene....no, there's no weight restriction, but they are strict about the size requirement...55 x 40 x 20cm. And they are very strict about it being ONE piece of carry-on luggage, NOT one piece AND a purse or knapsack.

Have you considered travelling without a purse, taking less and buying fewer/smaller souvenirs?

Forgive me if I come across a bit preachy, but too often we North Americans forget that life is really not all about the "stuff". For me, vacation is all about leaving the heavy baggage (both physical and emotional) at home and enjoying life with the people I meet and memories I make along the way.

I agree with buying less. My mom and sister traveled in Europe for six weeks last summer with one checked bag each (which weighed no more than 20 kg at any time so as not to incur penalties on the various intraeurope flights they took).

Jill, My family and I just spent 17 days in London. My family flew RyanAir, and I met them there, as I was going on business, and had to fly through Frankfurt Main to Heathrow. My wife and kids had no issues (they each had a fairly weighty back-pack + my wife had a large stroller for my 2 y/o). Stanstead gave them no fits over the luggage or weight requirements, which was curious, because other places in Europe (ie: Rome) weight is strictly enforced. I, on the other hand, flew in/out of Heathrow and took two bags for the entire trip (business and casual clothes), no worries on the way in, but on the way out I got popped for 130lbs for "over weight bags", despite having added no weight from our lengthy trip (my wife carried all the trinkets home in the back-packs), so I guess I'd say, back the empty bag and use it as the carry-on on the way home...we have flown all over Europe for the last 24 months and have NEVER has RyanAir (the airline we use exclusively) weighed our carry-on bag. Now, we usually only have back-packs, so if you are thinking of packing the British Museum's inventory home in a carry-on, perhaps an additional suitcase is in order or mailing it home. If you have a suitcase, on RyanAir though, you will get charged for checked bags, as others have pointed out, it is their main secondary source of income, their primary source being packaged vacation deals. That was a long, convoluted answer to your question, but I hope it helped some.

I find most of the airline websites are very hard to find information about their baggage fees and even when you find it, it's hard to understand! I came across a great website that has many airline's baggage policies.

Check it out....airlinealacarte.com

Kate

Jill,

I flew with RyanAir from Bristol to Dublin last fall, and found there is NO tolerance at all for even a little bit of excess weight. Even though my Backpack was only a pound or so over the limit, I got "nicked" with an overweight charge.

To add to the misery, they had a somewhat "cumbersome" process whereby I had to leave the check-in queue, go to a separate desk and stand in another queue to pay the charge, and then return to the original queue and wait again. Finally,after getting to the front of the line, they advised that since a Backpack was "non standard luggage", I'd have to go to yet another queue. After the Pack was checked, they proceeded to cut-off my TSA Lock, and didn't bother leaving a note inside to indicate that the bag had been inspected. Needless to say, I was more than a little annoyed.

As I result of that experience, I've decided that I will continue to use RyanAir, but ONLY if there's no alternative. If I can find another airline with more generous weight limits, they will be the preferred choice.

As I travel with Camera gear, it's difficult to keep the weight at the meagre limits that RyanAir sets. If I was just travelling domestically, it would be easier. Add to that the extra clothing and other kit needed for travel overseas, and packing becomes more challenging.

As mentioned, the airports in the U.K. all seem to enforce the "one bag limit" for carry-on, but from my observations this seems to be enforced on somewhat of a "random basis". It's a good idea to carefully choose which bags you travel with, so that you have the capability to place one bag inside the other when flying.

Hope you find a good solution!

Happy travels!

Hi Jill,

My husband and I are flying from Glasgow to Shannon, Ireland in October on Ryanair. Here is our game plan! I hope you find it useful.

What we are doing is using our internal frame backpacks (with packing cubes) and then packing a carry on bag that fits under the requirements by Ryanair (55cm x 40cm x 20cm). That carry on bag can be up to 10kg (22pounds). So before we go to the airport we are going to pack our carry on bags quickly due to our packing cubes to make sure our checked on luggage is below the weight requirements.

My cousins lives in London and travels A LOT on Ryanair and he says they are very strict on the weight restrictions. If you are overweight in your checked on bag they will not give it back to you to shift weight around. They will also not let you pack it into your friends bag either.

I know its sounds silly but we are actually packing a trial run with fake souvenirs to make sure we will be okay since the dollar every kilo we are over thats approx $16 US!

Hope that helps!
Jill

We flew Ryanair out of Dublin in August on our way to Liverpool (only because our ferry had been cancelled). They will certainly weigh your checked luggage. My husband's suitcase was 6 kilos overweight and he was charged 15 Euros for each kilo. Had we been thinking straight it probably would have made more sense to leave the line, buy a small piece of luggage, transfer things into it, and then (probably) pay a smaller fee for the extra bag. Of course he swears he'll never again take that size suitcase.

Maggie your post was the truly excellant. .

Jill , if you did this trip last year you don't need to buy sounvenirs this year again do you? You already have the tea towels and t shirts right? LOL

Or,, start collecting something really small as souvenirs, fridge magnets or charms for bracelets..LOL

We have flow Ryanair and Airlingus this summer. Airlingus has very strict requirements, more than Ryanair. We have found out that if our carry-on is getting over the weight limit, I start putting things from the luggage into my coat pockets. It is amazing what you can get into the pockets! We get to the terminal early and then we go to the check-in lane and weight our bags and carry-on. If a problem, we redistribute the contents until they meet the weight requirements. If still over, pockets in wife and my coats. Also, if you have bought stuff in the airport, you can carry this on with no weight requirements. The bags indicate airport purchases. I see no reason that you cannot add to this treasure trove if needed.