weight limit on equipment luggage

I was shopping for some new bags at the local luggage store today and the clerk mentioned that if you have a bag clearly marked as "equipment" it is exempt from the airline weight limit. Has anyone ever heard this before? I pay overage fees on dive baggage every time I fly, she said dive gear, photo gear, golf clubs, just about anything that's "recreational equipment" or "photographic equipment" is exempt from the weight limit. Has anyone ever heard of this before?

thx.

I fly primarily on NWA, and until recently the weight limit was 80 lbs per bag for professional photographers's checked camera gear.

That's changed recently; they no longer allow such overweight without charging you, although you do get a cheaper overweight / extra bag charge.

Declare something as sports equipment, that's a great way to pay extra. Just cram the scuba gear into a big rollerbag and mums the word.

All the best, James

The extra allowance for sports bags varies from airline to airline. On those I use (primarily Singapore Airlines), I get an extra 10kg to 20kg for sports equipment.

Some airlines allow professional photographers an extra bag but you have to provie it by belonging to certain organizations.

Never heard of "equipment" allowances.

There is a rumour that airlines are friendly towards golfers and their huge bags, but that may be to do with the fact that those guys fly business or first and wear suits, clean shirts and a tie.

Divers have always as much gear, it's just as heavy, but the liveaboard cost so much that business class is out of the question and they usually wear a tatterd seven tenths t-shirt or a an Sinai Divers jumper. Casually dressed coach class passenger just don't quite cut it at the check in counter.

I went to the Red Sea last week and got a major wake up call from our airline. We usually packed all our gear into one big bag (actually it was a golfing bag). On past trips that monster had weighed from 42 up to 50 kg and it had never been a problem to check it in.

This time round we were told that regulations had changed and a single piece of luggage cannot weigh more than 30kg - We had to split everything up. Fortunately there was time to go home, dig up two old crappy dive bags and repack our gear.

My next purchase is a new dive bag with telescope handle and wheels which does not take more than 30kg worth of gear.

Fred

Just got back from a wedding in New York and the photo pro was packing his stuff in one of those hard golf club bags.

He said it was definitely the way to go!

Lotsa room with wheels to boot. Definitely didn't scream Camera...

no idea about things in the US, but for international travel here are a couple of points:

both singapore airlines and silk air have sports equipment allowances

air france has just implemented an official policy for sports equipement surcharge whereby you pay a minimum fee ( i thin 40 euros for international flight) and you get up to 20kg of surcharge, eliminates the lottery of praying each time you check in. i am assuming that due to the merger with klm, that his policy will be available there as well, but have not seen it written anywhere.

and if you are lucky enough to fly in business class then things get easier.

all flights going through london or australia have limits on the max weight allowed on one baggage, 32 kg, this is due to labour policies in those countries for baggage handlers, this also means that if your flight will transit by anyone of the airports in those countries you are subjected to that limit.

i am currently ending a trip, nice-frankfurt-singapore-manado-manila-yap return and have not had an issue yet with 48kg of checked luggage and about 30kg of hand luggage (though i may not see my luggage for a while as i checked it all the way through from yap to manila to singapore to frankfurt to nice, and i am writing this as i am flying between SIN and FRA )

hth

/paul