Bag guides
How airline bag rules work and how to stay inside them. Every figure comes from the same airline data as the comparison pages.
Checked against the airlines’ websites on
- Carry-on vs personal itemA carry-on goes in the overhead bin; a personal item goes under the seat in front of you. On American, the carry-on can be 22 × 14 × 9 in and the personal item 18 × 14 × 8 in. On budget airlines such as Frontier, Allegiant and Sun Country, only the personal item is free.
- How to measure a carry-on bagStand the bag up and measure its height from the floor to the top of the handle, then its width and depth at the widest points, wheels, handles and pockets included. Almost every airline counts wheels and handles; Wizz Air is the exception, and still limits wheels to 5 cm.
- Liquids in hand luggage: the 100 ml ruleIn every place here the limit is 100 ml (3.4 oz) a container, in one clear bag of about a litre per person: quart-sized in the US. Medicines, baby food and milk, and duty free sealed in a security bag are the usual exceptions. Some UK airports with new scanners allow containers up to 2 litres, but GOV.UK names none; in the EU the 100 ml cap still holds at airports with the older scanners. Check the airport you fly from.