Carry-on size and weight limits by airline: 35 airlines compared

This page covers the overhead bag, the case or backpack that goes in the bin. The bag under the seat has its own page, personal item size by airline, and the 7 kg packing guide covers getting a bag under a weight once you know the number. The 35 rows below were read from the airlines' baggage pages on 11 October 2026. Alaska, Spirit, Allegiant, Hawaiian, Virgin Atlantic, EVA Air, Cathay Pacific, IndiGo and Cebu Pacific are not in the table.

Carry-on limits for 35 airlines

Each source link opens the airline's carry-on page. A cell marked converted is our arithmetic from the airline's centimetres or inches; every other figure is printed as the airline gives it. "Added up" is length, width and height summed, the total Delta, Singapore Airlines and the Japanese airlines print. A weight shared "with the personal item" is one number for both bags.

Three size limits cover 26 of the 35. Ten airlines, from American to Jetstar, use 22 × 14 × 9 in or its metric twin, 56 × 36 × 23 cm. Thirteen use 55 × 40 cm with 20 to 25 cm of depth, Air Canada, Lufthansa and the Japanese and Korean airlines among them. British Airways, easyJet and Jet2 allow 56 × 45 × 25 cm. The outliers set the limit for anyone flying several airlines on one trip: Qatar's 50 cm is the shortest long side in the table, Delta, United, Air France and KLM stop the middle side at 35 cm, and Ryanair and Air India stop the depth at 20 cm. Korean Air prints 20 cm too, but also takes any bag up to 115 cm added up. Southwest and Frontier allow the most, 24 × 16 × 10 in.

An inch over rarely matters for the reason people expect. On r/delta, stevehamner asked about a carry-on measuring "22.4 x 15.4 x 8.7, which is bigger than the posted 22 x 14 x 9". lolofit's reply gave the reason the numbers exist: "It either literally won’t fit, or it’ll mean you can fit only two bags instead of three in the overhead bin- making someone else gate check." SpaghettiOnMyCat had flown Delta 22 times that year without a size check and put the risk elsewhere: "Later zones and smaller planes have a very high likelihood of being gate checked." That is the Delta Connection rule in the table, seen from the boarding queue.

Why 50 × 35 × 20 cm passes all 35

Sort the bag's three measurements and the airline's three, then compare biggest with biggest and smallest with smallest, because a soft bag fits a sizer in any orientation. Taking the smallest number at each position gives 50 × 35 × 20 cm: Qatar's length, the 35 cm width shared by Delta, United, Air France and KLM, and the 20 cm depth of Ryanair and Air India. Those sides add up to 105 cm, inside Delta's 114 cm and the 115 cm totals of Singapore Airlines, Scoot, ANA, Japan Airlines and Air India. Scoot's 54 cm length and Emirates' 22 cm depth are both looser than the box, so neither binds.

Weight works the same way. The lowest printed figure is 7 kg, and AirAsia, Jetstar Starter fares and Qantas international Economy count the personal item inside it. A bag that weighs 7 kg with the personal item counted clears every weight in the table.

The cost is space. A 50 × 35 × 20 cm box holds 35 litres by multiplication. American's 56 × 36 × 23 cm works out to 46 litres, and the British Airways and Jet2 box to 63, close to twice the pick. If every flight on the trip is on a US airline, a bag at 22 × 14 × 9 in buys back 11 litres, and we'd size to that instead.

Who weighs the bag follows the table. In an r/travel thread on carry-on weights, explorer_246 wrote "Whenever I travel to Asia they always weigh my carry-on at check-in and put a sticker/tag on it." Asked whether Delta weighs and tags carry-ons, AbFende answered "I’ve never seen them do this, not even on flights to Europe or from Europe", which fits an airline that doesn't print a weight. In the first thread, Trudestiny answered that most European airlines "have an 8 kg limit and do enforce it" and that "Only BA has no limit weight policy - all you need to be able to do is lift it". The European rows bear out the second half, though their printed limits run from 8 kg on Lufthansa and SWISS to 15 kg on easyJet. Outside Europe, Air Canada, WestJet and JetBlue use the same lift-it-yourself test.

Fares that leave the overhead bag out

The size only matters if the fare includes the bag. Ryanair and Wizz Air sell the overhead bag as a priority add-on, Frontier sells it alone or in a bundle, and easyJet includes it only on Inclusive Plus fares or with easyJet Plus. The full-service airlines strip it from their cheapest fare instead: United's Basic Economy at home, Air Canada's Economy Basic in North America, WestJet's UltraBasic, and the Basic fares of Lufthansa, SWISS, Air France and KLM. Aer Lingus takes the bag at check-in on its cheaper European fares and puts it in the hold free. On any of those fares the bag that counts is the personal item, and the personal-item-only guide covers fitting a trip into it.

Worked example: one backpack on three airlines, Toronto to Kuala Lumpur

Take Osprey's Farpoint 40, a front-panel travel backpack listed at 55 × 35 × 23 cm and 1.48 kg, on three separate tickets: Air Canada Economy Basic from Toronto to London, Qatar Airways Economy Lite from London to Bangkok through Doha, and AirAsia from Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur.

Air Canada passes it. Sorted, 55 × 35 × 23 cm sits inside 55 × 40 × 23 cm, and no weight is printed. Economy Basic would have barred it on a flight to the US, but Air Canada's route list for that rule stops at the Caribbean. A London flight keeps the bag.

Qatar is where it fails. The 50 cm limit is 5 cm short of the bag's length, and the measuring guide puts what squishing recovers at a centimetre or two. alefeusch put the test plainly on r/travel: "The size of the bag doesn't really matter if it fits in the sizer as packed." A 55 cm pack doesn't fit a 50 cm sizer however it's packed. Qatar's fare table lists 20 kg of checked baggage on Economy Lite for routes outside Africa and the Americas, with exceptions on some routes. The booking confirmation shows whether this leg checks the Farpoint at no extra cost.

AirAsia passes it on size, 55 × 35 × 23 against 56 × 36 × 23 cm. The weight is the test: 7 kg for the bag and the personal item together leaves 5.52 kg for the personal item and everything packed in both, once the Farpoint's own 1.48 kg is counted.

We'd keep the Farpoint, pack both bags to 7 kg for the AirAsia leg, and check the backpack on Qatar. The trade-off is a bag out of sight through the Doha connection and a wait at the belt in Bangkok. The other route is a bag at 50 × 35 × 20 cm that stays in the cabin all the way, giving up about 9 litres of outside volume: the Farpoint's 55 × 35 × 23 cm works out to 44 litres, against 35 for the pick. The printable checklist has a carry-on group to weigh against before the AirAsia flight.

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