Carry on luggage weight ?

Has anyone seen or had their carry on luggage weighed ?

Most of my travel has been in the United States and Caribbean where carry on weight limits are around 40 lbs.

I noticed all the non U.S. airlines have much lower carry on weight limits around 15 lbs. / 7kg. Are these limits regularly enforced ? That's a pretty low limit and would basically eliminate all the wheeled carry on bags.

Has anyone seen or had their carry on luggage weighed ?

only on small planes where they weigh everything (passengers too)

Never been charged excess on it. Have paid excess twice now on checked bags.

Flown in an out of ...

Solomons (a few times)

Vanuatu

Malaysia (a few times)

Maldives

US

and, of course, Australia (lots)

Sydney airport has been the worst, but never checked carry on for size or weight

Matt's been swabbed for explosives because of my dome port ... but that's another story LOL

I'm not really to concerned about being charged for a heavy carry on, I'm more concerned that I will be forced to check it with the main baggage.

After having my lights get damaged in a softside checked bag, I like to carry on all my video equipment. Camcorder, housing, ports, lights, etc..

In the UK I have had carry-ons weighed a few times. It depends on the airline.

In the Maldives, changing onto inter-island plane, they weigh all luggage and then charge excess if you over in total.

In New Zealand I have had security weigh carry-on and force you to reduce weight if you are too heavy. this is the only place I have ever seen security care about size or weight.

My trick to cope with carry-on weight questions is to wear cargo pants and if I need to reduce weight I take my strobes (DS125) out of the carry on and slip one in each pocket on my legs. This reduces weight significantly.

I have also for my shame got a photographers vest which can take a lot of weight if necessary. Of course as soon as you are out of site load it all back in !

I had my carry-on weighed on a flight from the US to Narita on JAL. I took my housing out of the carry-on and put it up on the counter. The guy then weighed my bag again and let it pass. Then I just put the housing back in...

Cheers

James

You guys must LOVE traveling with lots of carry on luggage

These days, I carry on only my dSLR camera bodies, lenses, iPod and maybe a few rechargeable batteries for my Canon A640 P&S little camera. But a dSLR housing and strobes? No way......

I plan my trips with lots of time between connections, maybe even a day or more early in case of luggage mishaps. It's all shipped in the padded divider set from a Pelican 1620 size case. Then this drops into a 6lb. Samsonite plastic suitcase (with wheels!) that looks like hell. I even put duct tape on the latches so it looks some some bum is taking a trip

Always barely weighs 42 lbs.......dSLR housing, ports, strobe(s) arms, cords, spare parts, etc.

Plus my tool kit, shipped thorugh in this case is a Swiss Army knife, two small phillips head srewdrivers, one allen wrench set, o-ring grease, Q-tips (yeah, I know, use the new ladies foam eye makeup sticks instead) plus a couple brightly colored guitar picks for removing o-rings safely.

I have never been on a dive boat or to a dive resort who didn't have crescent wrenches, drills, soldering irons, hacksaws, etc. that I couldn't borrow if need be....

Too each his own, but traveling is a pain in the butt already. Complicating it hauling tons of stuff sure doesn't sound like fun to me

dhaas

P.S. - James comment is also pretty good. Many times just being nice and making the counter people's job less of a hassle can go a LOOONNNGGGG way.......SMILE A LOT !!!!!!

I've got similar experiences to Mark: carry-ons weighed in the UK - and now much more difficult because of counter-terrorist measures. Occasionally weighed by Qantas and Emirates; defintely weighed for inter-Maldives island travel.

It is certainly getting more difficult to board with sizable carry-ons for routes commencing in Europe.

Most of the trips I take cost me a good few thousand g's. The peace of mind knowing my important stuff is with me at all times is worth a hudred or two more if necessary.

So my Lowepro Computrekker has my D200 housing with camera in it, strobes x2, at least one port and lens, at least one set of arms and flash cords. The laptop goes in it's compartment. Any other pieces can go in checked baggage. At least then I'm not SOL if a bag is lost or stuff is stolen. I've seen it happen to at least one person on almost every trip I've been on in the last couple of years. This is especially the case if I am forced to go through Miami or Puerto Rico.