When Ontario resident Cindy McKay was preparing for a month in Europe this year, travelling with her 12-year-old grandson and living out of the contents of two carry-on bags, she knew she had homework to do.
“British Airways, Ryanair, Scandinavian,” she says, ticking off the various airlines that would take them to Athens, Crete, Dubrovnik, Prague, London and back to Canada.
Her plan? “Make a spreadsheet of all of the different airlines, what their requirements are, their weight allowances, their centimetres, all of it for me and my grandson to not get, you know, buggered anywhere on any flight.”
McKay knew not only that airlines have various restrictions on luggage size and weight, but that these are lines in the sand. And sand has a way of shifting.
Just ask an authority.
“It does seem to have decreased,” says Jim Bookbinder, who teaches transportation and logistics as a professor of management science at the University of Waterloo. “The size allowed, that has decreased over the years.”
He adds, with a touch of professorial modesty: “Not that I’m an expert in this, but I fly like everybody else.”
A
found that maximum carry-on sizes had decreased by as much as 55 per cent since 2018, with European budget airlines being some of the biggest agents of change.
For instance, the British airline easyJet, which used to allow free hand luggage of up to 56 by 45 by 25 centimetres, has cut back to 45 by 36 by 20, shaving at least five centimetres off each of the three dimensions. Budapest-based Wizz Air made a similar move, going from 55/40/23 down to 40/30/20.
Bucking the trend just a little last year was Calgary-based WestJet, which modified its carry-on limits from 56/36/23 to 53/38/23, an increase of a modest 2.2 per cent that aligned it with some airlines, but also differed from others.
“There’s a move afoot to have a standard size for all flights within the European Union,” Bookbinder reports. “But I don’t think that’s quite passed yet. That measure has been proposed but is still under discussion.”
In any case, the name that keeps coming up is Ryanair, the Dublin-based ultra-budget airline that flies across Europe. Carry-on baggage on those flights went from 55/40/20 in 2018 to just 40/25/20 last year. That’s the 55 per cent drop. Any larger and you’ll pay a fee.
Bookbinder calls Ryanair “the worst offender, as we would define the offence of trying to keep passengers from having a carry-on bag that’s viewed as too large.”
But he adds that fees matter to the industry, particularly at the budget end of the spectrum. “Up to 30 per cent of the discount airlines’ revenue is from these extra fees.”
People will pay to keep their bags in the cabin with them, and to not have to wait at the carousel when they land. “The airline that charges for that privilege of being able to get on your way right away, I guess they found a point of vulnerability on the part of some passengers.”
Air Canada joined that club this year. While their carry-on size has remained the same for many years, it has stopped allowing free carry-on luggage at the lowest economy tier.
And even though the airline plans to expand its fleet next year with the latest Airbus 220 aircraft (featuring extra overhead bin space), it has no plans to undo its fee-for-bags rule.
Bookbinder says the trend for airlines to squeeze more passengers into existing space also reduces the overhead bin space per customer.
“They reconfigure the aircraft from time to time, and if you add a couple of more rows of seats … the volume available to each could be slightly less.”
He prefers to check his own baggage. “And the reason is I worry about getting into a fight with another passenger over the last overhead bin.”
McKay, on the other hand, prefers to run the numbers and make them work for her.
For instance, a British Airways carry-on can’t be larger than 56 by 45 by 25 centimetres, including wheels and handle, and it has to weigh less than 23 kilograms.
But transfer to Scandinavian and your limits are a few vital centimetres less, at 55 by 40 by 23, with a weight limit of just eight kilos.
At Air Canada, the size limits are the same, but there’s no upper limit on weight as long as you can pick it up. (Fun fact: You can stuff 57 kilos of lead, or almost 100 kilos of gold, in an Air Canada regulation carry-on.)
Armed with the data, McKay went to the Costco website and bought a bag by Bugatti, “which sounds super fancy but it was $99.” Costco delivered it to her door in Ontario’s Muskoka region, where she works remotely in the real estate appraisal industry.
“So it worked. And my new luggage, which I absolutely love, has a compartment right on the front of it for your laptop. So you don’t have to dig inside your luggage to get at it.”
(New scanners
mean you no longer have to take your laptop out of your carry-on when you go through security, but smaller airports still have older technology.)
Suitcase manufacturers do what they can to keep up with changing (and shrinking) carry-on sizes, but it really is a case of buyer beware.
Kaitlyn Coleman, public relation and communications director at New York-based luggage maker Away, says her company offers the Carry-On and the slightly larger Bigger Carry-On.
“We don’t have plans to make adjustments at this time,” she adds, but notes that
, like those of many suitcase manufacturers, has a list of airlines and their size requirements.
Briggs & Riley similarly produces two different standard size carry-ons “that are compliant with most carry-on baggage allowances for domestic and international flights,” says Jason Russo, an account supervisor. The company also produces the Cabin Spinner and the Underseat Duffle, designed for under-the-seat storage.
“They do not have any plans to change the dimensions of their carry-on pieces as these sizes ensure that luggage will meet the most amount of requirements put forth by various airlines,” he says.
Bookbinder notes: “For carry-on luggage, your best bet is a soft-sided bag, which you can squeeze a little bit to fit in.”
McKay says it’s all about doing your homework. Oh, and to be safe, never use those “does-it-fit” devices at the gate.
“Yeah, I never put them in there. I just breeze on through with all the confidence in the world that I’m gonna fit.”
Here are the size requirements for carry-on luggage on major Canadian airlines, in centimetres. Note that all but Westjet have the same limits for carry-on luggage, while the personal item sizes vary.
Air Canada:
Carry-on: 23/40/55. Personal article: 16/33/43.
Westjet:
Carry-on: 23/36/56. Personal item: 14/14/33.
Air Transat:
Carry-on: 23/40/55. Personal item: 13/31/43.
Porter:
Carry-on: 23/40/55. Personal item: 16/33/43.
Flair:
Carry-on: 23/40/55. Personal item: 15/33/43.
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