Jetstar To Lower Carry On Baggage Limit

21st Nov 2014

The budget carrier has announced recently that the new baggage policy will take effect starting this week.

In the new policy, passengers will only be allowed to bring a carry-on baggage with a maximum weight of 7kg down from the current 10kg allowance. A team of cabin baggage officers will be deployed by the airline at its airport counters to ensure the new policy is strictly observed.

If caught violating the policy, the erring passenger will be forced to have his overweight baggage checked in aside from paying a hefty amount of $50 for domestic flights and $160 for international flights.

Although the old policy still stands that allows a maximum of two pieces of carry-on baggage allowance per passenger. Needless to say, the new 7kg allowance should be the combined weight of two pieces of bags.

Jetstar also changed its checked baggage policy last year, adopting the current sliding scale system from the old fixed-price system. In the new sliding scale system, the fee shall depend on the weight of the checked baggage and the airport destination.

The changes in policy for both carry-on and checked baggage allow the airline to increase its revenue.

While it is true that the reduction of weight limit of carry-on baggage could potentially increase the airline's income, it was actually due to perennial complaints from some customers when they board a plane. Some passengers complained of cramped space in overhead luggage bin because other passengers were carrying baggage whose size and weight were more than what was allowed, either too big or too many.

The airline was carefully thinking of ways to address the perennial problem and they came up with the new policy of trimming down the baggage weight limit on all flights. Thus, Jetstar now joins other airlines in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region adopting similar baggage policy.

The airline official said that the new policy would enable them to operate more efficiently providing all their passengers a fair share of overhead luggage space.