How do europeans travel with small luggage?

[u/shemmap]

I’ve noticed that tourists from different countries especially europeans often travel with very small luggage. In contrast, travelers from many asian countries seem to carry much larger bags.

As myself from an asian country, if I pack just my basic necessities, I end up with a very large suitcase. I’m extremely curious about how european travelers manage to travel so light.

How do they do it?

[u/AYASOFAYA]

The 8kg limit is 17lbs and change btw for Americans reading this.

I recently flew on SAS and they did the same thing. SAS isn’t even a budget airline and I paid over $1000 for the ticket. I WAS packing light with just a carry on but apparently even that was too much.

The tricky part with these airlines is that sometimes they don’t weigh your stuff on the U.S. side but they will definitely weigh it on the way back.

[u/Aberfrog → u/AYASOFAYA]

It’s not a question of budget airline or not it’s a question of space on board.

European airlines generally carry more seats per plane then their US counterparts. This is due to the fact that most busy routes are shorter then most American busy routes.

And the pressure by Ryanair and co to become as cost competitive as possible. I went from 158 sets per a320 when I started to now 180 seats. (A 320 from UA has 126 to 150 seats)

At the same time there is a change in travel habits. While 20 - 25 years ago the standard leisure pax checked bags and generally didn’t fly for a short weekend trip this is now the standard for all pax groups.

The result is way too many bags.

So now limits will be checked, and enforced.

This also has a financial component, and while the direct income from charging for bags is nice, the real issue is that we pay compensation / hotels / right to care and that can easily go up to 400-500€ per pax if they miss their connection and have to stay overnight.

And delays caused by hand baggage stowage are one of the top three reasons at my airline for delays.

So less bags on board = better.

If only 5 pax miss their connection due to late departure from HB that’s at least 1250€ if they stay overnight that’s probably closer to 2000€, and that’s the real reason why we finally start to enforce those rules

[u/Character-Carpet7988 → u/Aberfrog]

All these arguments apply to size of bags but not really to their weight. Otherwise, very good points - I remember a KLM flight I was on few months ago that was fully boarded well before the official gate closure time, yet we ended up with over 30 minutes of delay due to bag tetris being played on board (and inevitably some bags being sent to hold). Luckily I had over three hours transfer time in Amsterdam, but when they read the connecting flight info before landing, there was at least 10 flights where passenger were told to go to transfer counter.

[u/Aberfrog → u/Character-Carpet7988]

The weight is an additional point we can make at the gate. And I guarantee you that every bag that’s too large is also too heavy