What is a 'personal item' for travelling on a plane? How airlines define that extra carry-on item

Some airlines are quite generous in how they define what your additional carry-on 'personal item' can be.Credit: iStock

Air travel with just a carry-on case within the seven kilogram limit is a tough call, but airlines also allow you to travel with a "personal item", and that might just be enough to help you skip the checked-baggage queue.

What is a personal item?

Size is critical. Your personal item needs to fit under the seat in front of you, but every airline has slightly different ideas about what that constitutes and it turns out the big red 'roo has a small pouch. In addition to your seven kilogram carry-on baggage allowance, Qantas allows you to carry on board one small personal item such as a handbag, laptop computer, overcoat, small camera, a reasonable amount of reading material or a small amount of duty-free goods. For a laptop computer to be considered a personal item it must be carried in a slim bag.

In addition to one baggage item stowed in the overhead locker, Jetstar allows passengers to travel with a personal item to be stored under the seat in front, such as a handbag, a laptop in a thin case or duty-free goods. Total combined weight of both must not exceed seven kilograms. Virgin Australia allows one standard-size carry-on bag, maximum seven kilograms, plus one personal item, such as laptop, handbag, a wrap, an overcoat, a small camera or pair of binoculars.

Those personal items allowances are well short of what most other airlines prescribe. Singapore Airlines will allow you to bring on board a handbag, a camera bag, a document bag or a laptop bag. Note a camera bag, rather than the small camera deemed as personal items by Qantas and Virgin Australia, and who wants to be kicking their camera around under their feet? There's another crucial difference in the dimensions that Singapore Airlines allows as personal items, specifically 40 x 30 x 10cm.

US airlines such as American Airlines are better yet, allowing one personal item not to exceed 45 x 35 x 20 centimetres, while United caps it at 43 x 25 x 23 centimetres. Flying British Airways? The limit for your personal item is 40 x 30 x 15 centimetres. Lufthansa, or discount carrier Air Asia? Maximum personal item size is 40 x 30 x 10 centimetres. Even Ryanair, which has made charging passengers for every concession into an art form, has a far more generous policy than our own carriers. All passenger fare types on the carrier include a small personal bag, maximum size 40 x 20 x 25 centimetres.

Some passengers are testing the limits

US airline passengers are reporting pushback over their personal items rules. That's partly the airlines' fault. In the kerfuffle over lost baggage experienced since the travel restart, many travellers are trying to avoid check-in luggage when they fly, and therefore they are stretching the carry-on and personal items allowance to the limit. Fines for passengers who transgress the size limits for their personal items have become a revenue stream for some carriers, and they're keeping an eye out for offenders.

That hasn't yet become a problem in Australia, but what our airlines say with respect to personal items and what they enforce might be different. As well as a size and weight compliant carry-on case that goes in the overhead locker, my wife carries a tote when she flies domestically. It measures 45 centimetres wide and 25 centimetres deep, with an oval bottom, and it fits under the seat in front, as regulations require. That's well above what our airlines prescribe but it doesn't get weighed, and it's never been a problem. She's not alone, and it would be a brave flight attendant who might try and apply the airlines' personal items rules to the letter.

Maxing out your personal items allowance

If you're travelling aboard an airline with generous dimensions for your personal items, pack anything you might need for the flight in the bag destined for the underside of the seat in front. Even if you're sitting in an aisle seat, they're a lot easier to reach in that position rather than in the overhead locker. It's also easier to manage if anything you need to take out at the security checkpoint – laptop, tablet, phone – is in your personal items.

If you can't fit what you're carrying within coo-ee of what your airline might allow, one strategy is a jacket with multiple pockets. No airline is going to stop you from boarding with a jacket, and those pockets can accommodate just about anything you might need for the flight.

See also: No more excess baggage: The 23 ways we'll be travelling in 2023

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