Ridiculous carry on baggage

[Justinf]

I once carried a hurl all the way from Ireland to Melbourne (this was before 9/11).

I once hurled all the way from Melbourne to ireland and then all my around Ireland. Does that count?

 

[clazman]

Early eighties, action man guns, got strange looks when it went through xray ...... Malaysian security thought they were real....

 

[leadman]

Couple of decades back, North Africa, people used to (I would hope not now but you never know and I suspect from some reports it still happens) butane cookers and went down the back to heat their own carry on food during the flight.

I'm not sure if they still have the posters up at Chinese railway stations discouraging passengers cooking their own food on the trains, but it was common back in the early 2000's. The posters were extremely graphic showing the results of fires and accidents with charred bodies and parts in gory details and photos. They certainly made the stomach turn......

 

[OzEire]

Woman on my VA MEL-CBR tonight was taking the piss. A huge roller bag was just one of FOUR items carried on to the flight. Even better she used the priority boarding but I spotted her Red status on the phone boarding pass. But taking the cake was Silver QF baggage tags on two of her 4 items.

VA staff did nothing at pri board or baulk at the carry on.

 

[Pushka]

One thing I saw Jetstar do today was weigh suspiciously heavy bags. Several were then loaded on to a small trolley and they were wheeled down a ramp and into the hold. I was very impressed.

 

[leadman]

It's about time they started to check. I find it a bit of a joke travelling with a few colleagues who claim "I only travel carry-on" and their bags are not much smaller and in one person in particular, are heavier than my checked-in.

The few legs in the US a few weeks ago was terrible. With their checked bag costs pax's carry-on are huge and multiple. And you see them dropping them off at row 7 but their seat is 32!

 

[Franky]

Couple of decades back, North Africa, people used to (I would hope not now but you never know and I suspect from some reports it still happens) butane cookers and went down the back to heat their own carry on food during the flight.

I never flew another flight in the region after seeing that, made a point of not having any reason to go back.

Have a hazy recollection of a flight from Indonesia to Mecca for Ramadam (70s/80s perhaps) where the burner in the aisle was knocked over. IIRC the subsequent fire caused the loss of the aircraft. Can anyone else recall this happening?

 

[juddles]

I remember that - will look it up....

 

[juddles]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudia_Flight_163

This was the one. "Officially" the cause of the fire is unknown or came from the rear cargo area, even though a couple of butane stoves were located.....

 

[AnnaB]

Not ridiculous but it did set the entire airport security off their guard.... Was in the late 90's, travelling through Russia. I had one of those old style alarm bells that you wind up. This day I did the mistake of winding it up before putting it into my backpack with a bunch of headsets and other cords Ticked quite nicely while being scanned in airport security check, then a whole heap of security came running while I was detained to the side and they carefully had a look in my backpack
They looked quite relieved when they pulled out my little red alarm bell

 

[Franky]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudia_Flight_163

This was the one. "Officially" the cause of the fire is unknown or came from the rear cargo area, even though a couple of butane stoves were located.....

Thanks - well found.

 

[Jude Starr]

Craziest thing I've ever carried on was a human skull (real, not plastic) that we found when clearing out my granfather's house. He was a Doctor, and it had been from his med school days before plastic ones were the norm. I packed it carefully in the hand luggage, fully expesting some questions about it when it went through the scanner, but nobody blinked an eye. My travelling companion had the tiniest pair of sewing scissors in her bag (forgot it was in there) and it was so small it is unlikely you could even have broken skin with it; of course it was confiscated. Potentially trafficking in human body parts, however, is apparently ok. Hhahah!

 

[Simsy85]

On our recent trip home from NYC, we bought back a crystal engraved Red Wine glass set and decanter. Package was about 1x1.2m - UA were very accommodating (the Green Tiffany's bag helped)

 

[Denali]

In March, my husband had to have a large volcanic rock carve Moai from Easter Island, which I had to carry through 6 security checks and got secondary 5 of those times.

Apparently carrying a big lump of rock is questionable

The LAX security guys gave him a hard time, for making me carry it.

 

[Beehelp]

Flying from Barcelona yo Frankfurt I saw a little girl (with her parents) with a bucket of seashells, mixed with candies. The bucket wasn't as big as in the picture, but looked quite big comparing to the girl

 

[Reggie]

Perth - Port Hedland / Karratha / Newman the smell of KFC picked up on way to airport and stored in the overhead lockers for 2 hours was punishing. The airlines then tried to stop pax taking the hot food on and making pax buy day before and chill. Then KFC opened in both Port Hedland and Karratha and the Newman Chicken Treat started selling fried chicken, so haven't seen the KFC on the planes for a while now

 

[mel-world]

Just finished some internal North American flights. If you think we have problems with carry-on, you should see what the Americans think they can get away with. Mind you, when it costs at least USD25 to check any bag and it can take 30 min for the bags to appear on the carousel, you can see why the road warriors over there think they can take a full sized case, a backpack and a computer bag on-board with them. UA has one group who cannot carry-on a case, only what can go under the seat so saw a number of people having to check bags even after boarding. My other observation; never take a computer in a backpack or other soft sided case. I had to rescue mine on a few occasions when someone in a back row decided there was space above me nearer the front to force their roller into the overhead, not withstanding my back-pack already being in there. It also delays boarding having full bins with still 30% of passengers still to try to find space. I saw hardly anyone with little or no carry-on, unlike here where you can usually find a proportion of pax with only a small handbag or computer bag.

 

[YSSY]

Several years ago, when moving countries, I was taking as much allowance as I could on international J. I used a combination of status, J baggage allowances and also the hand carry allowances.
To maximise my allowance, I filled my roller board hand carry with books and papers. It weighed about 30kg as it was pure solid papers, so when I got to security and put it through the scanner it came up on the x-ray as a solid black mass, resulting in security demanding me to unpack it completely for inspection. I put it in a cupboard rather then the overhead onboard as it would certainly have killed someone had it fallen out.