Hi, any aircraft tech gurus out there that can explain carry on baggage weights?  Recently travelled on a Thai Lion local flight, checked in large baggage at check in point, at the gate they had two trainees weighing carry on luggage after showing showing our boarding passes. We were about 2 Kilos over weight with our carry on suitcase, we were told to remove the excess and place it in another bag, which we had inside one of the suitcases, we then were allowed to board the plane,  I then proceeded to our seats and placed our luggage including the 2 kilos of excess luggage in the overhead locker. Question: What did this achieve exactly??

On Thai Lion Air it's on their website and on the fare rules when the ticket is purchased - 7KG carry on and size of bag is important too. They are strict about this. This is how they make their money charging for all the little extras.

SOP

The story I heard was that a passenger was killed by a heavy bag falling onto his/her head from a compartment and subsequently airlines have reduced the cabin baggage allowance from 10kg to 7kg but as you say once people are through security most just chuck everything back into the cabin bag which kind of defeats the purpose of the regulation. 

Its all has to do with weights and balances of the aircraft in take off, flight and landing, the aircraft has to evenly balanced with the weights distributed evenly throughout the airplane for safe flying and controlling the plane...

'the aircraft has to evenly balanced with the weights distributed evenly throughout the airplane for safe flying and controlling the plane' 

 

Sounds good in theory... BUT they don't weigh the passengers when they allocate seats, so all the fatties could be on one side of the plane. Many folk do on line check in and get a seat allocated, so no idea where the thin/chubby ones are. It doesn't make much sense to me. 

4 hours ago, ezzra said:

Its all has to do with weights and balances of the aircraft in take off, flight and landing, the aircraft has to evenly balanced with the weights distributed evenly throughout the airplane for safe flying and controlling the plane...

 

yea, i kind of get that, but if that's the case why don't they take passenger weight into account and seat people to balance the aircraft? people surely weigh more than bags?!

 

which brings me to my second point... as someone who is slim due a healthy lifestyle i do resent having, on occasion, to give up the (limited enough) seat space i have paid for to the overflowing fat of the overweight individual next to me.

31 minutes ago, it is what it is said:

 

yea, i kind of get that, but if that's the case why don't they take passenger weight into account and seat people to balance the aircraft? people surely weigh more than bags?!

 

which brings me to my second point... as someone who is slim due a healthy lifestyle i do resent having, on occasion, to give up the (limited enough) seat space i have paid for to the overflowing fat of the overweight individual next to me.

because there'd be public outcry if they did that openly, 

the booking system already estimate passenger weight from age, gender and assign seat and calculate the loads 

 

I heard some Hawaiian or Pacific Island airline full of muscly men do actually weigh passengers

When I was in the business with charter flights in Europe in the 70s and 80s it was THREE kg allowance.

Could be weight… 3-4 bags in overhead and door pops open the crew needs to close it …. Revenue 

stream…. and sometimes just silly <deleted>.., like you call in instead of going on line … there’s a few with some airlines….. and sometimes passengers try to stuff all there bags in overhea…

There is a weight limit for the overhead storage.  If I recall correctly I saw a sticker in one that stated there was a 70 kilo limit. 

But if I had two bags one  with 10 kilos and the other 4 kilos, it wouldn't matter if contents were shifted to make both 7 kilos.  You still put 14 kilos in the overhead storage.  

That sticker I saw was not in a Thai aircraft.   The carryon that I had with me on my last trip to Thailand weighed about 13.7 kilos, when I checked just to see what the weight was.   No check of the weight was made by any airline to or from Thailand. 

I suppose it’s just logical that for safety reasons you should not overload the overhead compartments.