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I purchased Norwegian Air tickets for a round-trip between Copenhagen & NYC (layover at Gatwick) a while back, and only recently thought to double-check my bag's dimensions to make sure they fit within Norwegian's guidelines. I'm slightly worried about my carry-on: Norwegian specifies a 55x40x23cm maximum but my carry-on clocks in at 59x40x23 (the body of the carry-on is 55cm long; the feet add the other 4cm).

Should I expect to cough up the fee for another checked bag, or is there a good chance that they won't call me out for it? This was the only other discussion on it that I could find, so I'm hoping to get some more input on this.

Clarification: what I would really appreciate is input from people who have particular experience with any of the circumstances I listed: JFK/CPH/LGW & LCCs like Norwegian; really, any anecdotal evidence, since statistics are rather obviously a bit hard to come by.

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    @pnuts Those are about checked luggage, this question is about carry-on. Commented Aug 11, 2015 at 21:38
  • @pnuts Some airlines, LCCs in particular, do enforce carry-on sizes pretty closely -- those "will it fit" cages you see at check-in/around the gate sometimes aren't just for show. Checked-in size is generally much less important. Commented Aug 11, 2015 at 23:46
  • I'm relatively confident that I can fit my carry-on into one of those sizing cages - as long as the bars don't block the feet of it.
    – Pockets
    Commented Aug 11, 2015 at 23:57
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    For anyone who comes across this later: Norwegian, at least at JFK, does not allow lining up until something around 2 hours before departure (apparently, or at least something like that); the consequence was that to board the entire flight - esp. since it was international - all Norwegian staff were busy streamlining the process as much as possible, so not only was baggage size a non-concern, it felt like calling anyone out for oversized baggage would have slowed down the boarding process immensely, and was definitely not something anyone cared about paying attention to.
    – Pockets
    Commented Aug 31, 2015 at 21:17

2 Answers 2

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I don't think it's going to be a problem. I've flown with norwegian a few times (short flights within Europe though) and most of the time I have 2 pieces of carry on luggage. Normally they make an announcement at the gate stating that the flight is quite full and that anyone with large carry on or an extra bag should contatc them so they can check it in. This is done free of charge and seems to be standard practice. It seems like people do it intentionally to avoid the fee for checking in an oversized/extra bag.

Anyhow, my personal experience with norwegian seems to show that they are alright with oversized and even extra bags. Whether or not this applies to overseas flights I obivously cannot say, but if they allow it on a 90 min flight on a crowded 737 then I imagine it would work on longer flights as well...

Either way, I doubt they will care too much about the extra 4 cm... As long as the bag can be stowed properly you will be fine.

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Watch out when you go thru Oslo! They will call for "preboarding" and have everyone move out of a glass-enclosed waiting area and re-enter. At that point, "fish boy" will weigh most everyone's luggage with a hanging scale used for weighing fish. Be prepared to pay 4000 krones= $50 if your carryon suitcase AND hand bag (that goes under the seat) weighs over 10kg= 22 lbs.

I know of no other airline where their weight limits of 10kg applies to both pieces. Other airlines have a 10kg limit that only applies to the carryon suitcase. It is very easy to go over 10kg if applied to carryon suitcase and computer or handbag, given most empty suitcases weigh about 8 lbs. Of note, no scales used in Boston or Barcelona but also no glass-enclosed areas.

Most of the staff were rude and cold. When I called Norwegian Air to report that one of their own website states their policy was that the 10kg limit applies to carryon suitcase only and not both pieces, they were unresponsive. A good demonstration of lousy corporate culture and poorly trained customer service.

I uploaded the following to Norwegian 10 days ago and have not received a response:

I had read on your website:

Hand baggage allowances

that you are allowed to carry a 10kg carry-on suitcase, in addition to a small handbag. This is I what I did on my 9/7 flight from Boston to London without any questions or requests to weighing my bags at the airport check-in with the person manning the bag check/check-in area. I had dutifully weighed my bag at my house to be sure I did not exceed the published limits. On my return flight from Oslo, most but not all customers were required to have both their carry-on suitcase and their hand bag weighed together and had to check one of these if they collectively exceeded 10 kg. Mine and my wife's collective carry-on luggage exceeded 10 kg but that standard is different from what is published on the reference web site above, which states that only the suit case has to weigh under 10 kg, which ours were. We were required to pay 4000 Krones x 2 to check 2 bags, despite my letting the cashier know we had purchased low fare plus tickets but had not checked any bags. I would have checked our bags but did not think it necessary given the above published customer information on Norwegian air website.

I do not think it is a fair practice to have inconsistent enforcement. Specifically, I saw other passengers not stopped by guy weighing luggage and have difficulty lifting their heavy bags into the overhead bins that flight and also, there was no weigh-in on our previous 2 flights. I also do not think it is fair to publish one standard as described above and change the criteria used for enforcement at the airport.

I am requesting a refund for the above charges given that the standard used at the airport is different from Norwegian air has published on line when I checked. I honestly was trying to comply with the published rules and do not know if this was a gotcha or related to having out-of-date on-line published website information. If it is the latter which I think it is, it would be unfair to charge me if I was in compliance with information Norwegian keeps on their own websites.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you need additional information.

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  • 4000 NOK would be 500 USD and not 50. Did you actually mean 4000, or 400 ? seeing as 4000 is the same amount as a return trip Oslo- Oakland that seems quite unreasonable. Commented Oct 10, 2016 at 7:27

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