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How seriously should I take size and weight limits of hand luggage?

I'm interested in hearing anecdotal evidence from a specific airline and airport.

Flying KLM

AMS Schiphol ---> JFK NYC

Is there any precedent of KLM weighing carry-on bags at Schiphol? I am planning to put my textbooks in my backpack to decrease the weight of my checked luggage to its acceptable limit.

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    Past experience is no proof for the future. Whether or not they checked luggage weight in the past does not tell you anything about what you can expect in the future.
    – Willeke ♦
    Commented May 18, 2020 at 17:54
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    Past experience does tell you a lot about you can expect in the future and nobody acts as if that wasn't true.
    – Relaxed
    Commented May 18, 2020 at 22:47
  • @Relaxed I can't resist: all the past experiences described here with hand luggage weighing are they did, they didn't, sometimes, and it depends. In this case, the outcome is not accurately predictable.
    – DavidRecallsMonica
    Commented May 19, 2020 at 4:04
  • @DavidSupportsMonica You certainly cannot expect luggage to never or always be weighed and you know that through past experience. Beyond that, it could even be possible to attach rough probabilities to each event or compare airports, airlines or countries. Knowing that it does happen but not always is a lot of useful information. It's just silly to pretend that these “they did, they didn't, sometimes and it depends” tell you nothing. In fact, that's what you just used to reach a conclusion (as opposed, e.g., to some analytical reasoning that would treat these as irrelevant).
    – Relaxed
    Commented May 19, 2020 at 8:33
  • @Relaxed Very well said. I agree.
    – DavidRecallsMonica
    Commented May 19, 2020 at 14:17

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I've had my hand luggage both weighed and ignored at Schipol on many occasions over the past few years - you cannot rely on anecdotes here if your goal is to carry extra weight onboard, because there is a good chance you will end up having to pay more (often at a penalty) at check in, or reducing the weight in some other way.

If you fly business class, based on my experience you are more likely to have your carry on ignored so long as its not ridiculous (ie you are visibly struggling to lift it, or it looks like you have packed a small car and put a handle on it to pass it off as carry on).

However, in the current climate, airlines are going to be looking at any cost saving they can take, so I would expect them to be more stringent on baggage weights these days rather than being more lax - the less baggage they carry for your ticket cost, the less it costs them.

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