Ski boots - hand baggage or checked in

Ho hum ......
Look what I just found - If you're planning to book a flight with Air France next month you better watch your weight. Starting from the 1st of April 2010, people who are too big to squeeze into their seats will have to pay for two seats instead – calling it 'Fat Tax'.
United airlines and Southwestern airlines in US are also reported as charging for two seats.

Wow! I stand corrected.

So will there be a similar devise to measure 'people' as there is for hand luggage? That's going to make check in interesting…

There is a small regional airline in Ireland that services some of the offshore islands. They use small planes carrying about 10 passengers. As part of the check-in procedures, each passenger is weighed and allocated a seat accordingly to make sure that weight is evenly distributed around the plane!!! Thankfully, they haven't yet started to charge by weight!!!

This did annoy me this year - after being charged £60 for excess baggage by Thomson, we then ended up sitting next to some guy who spilled over his seat, and my wife could not get her tray table out of the armrest as his belly sides were resting on it. One of his belly flaps would have weighed more than the 6kg we got charged extra for, so why did he not get charged any excess baggage?

Just called BA. Were about as much use as a chocolate fireguard...

Going by 'policy' Boots have to be checked in. Though when I challenged her about why they couldn't be carried in as hand luggage, she didn't have an answer. "Just see what they say at check in" was pretty much all she could give me.

So my advise would be give it a go, but be prepared to either check them in with your ski's or pay for an extra check in bag.

Smokey Barr wrote:Just called BA. Were about as much use as a chocolate fireguard...

Going by 'policy' Boots have to be checked in. Though when I challenged her about why they couldn't be carried in as hand luggage, she didn't have an answer. "Just see what they say at check in" was pretty much all she could give me.

So my advise would be give it a go, but be prepared to either check them in with your ski's or pay for an extra check in bag.

I have made umpteen journeys on BA with ski boots in a rucksack, as hand baggage, and the same with Easyjet. Always GVA, either LGW or LHR. Not had any problems...so far!

I think you will find it is different with BA as these are scheduled flights not charter. I travel often with BA and other scheduled ariline flights and they will all, as a general rule, allow 23kg checked and 18kg hand as long as it meets the small suitcase size ( you will need to check on BA for sizes) but i am pretty sure you will get boot bags on as hand luggage or just put them in a smalll suitcase that meets the size requirements for cabin sizes. daughter often flies to the states to and she gets 23kg checked and 18kg hand plus a separate laptop carrier and hand bag - 4 bags total:-)

Reading these threads just confirms my thoughts. There are no identifiable rules. It isn't rocket science. For my money, Easyjet stole a march when they introduced the common sense rule for hand baggage weight, you must be able to lift it into place, subject to a size, 550X450x225. (going off memory, so don't carp)
So they could steal another march by making a positive hand baggage ski boot statement.

I've got an idea. It's so simple it's freakin genius :lol:

Just don't tell them what's in the bag. Keep it a secret.

They never ask you to open bags on check in. Security don't give a rat's backside what's in there as long as it's not a weapon or a bomb. And they don't class ski boots as weapons otherwise everybody would be having the same experience, and it wouldn't be happening at the check in desk.