Yes, it’s not that unusual. You’ll probably have to check luggage.

I just took aer lingus to dublin. We carried on bags that may not have been over 13lbs but, at no time did anyone from the airline handle my bag to verify that it was under 13 lbs. Not sure how they would even do that. Maybe its just somthing in their policy to discourage people from bringing heavy carry-ons.

I can’t say for your particular case, but on another airline they weighed the carry-on at check-in and said I had to check it.

Hmm, I guess I’ll just play it by ear then. It’s not a huge deal, but my friend is kinda wary about checking luggage due to some negative experiences he’s had in the past (i.e. losing luggage WITHIN the US). I was kinda thinking it might be like Gdrinkh2o suggests, just done to discourage people from bringing 3 gigantic heavy bags or something (which I ALWAYS seem to see people doing… talk about inconsiderate). Our bags are the standard dimension carry on size ones, so if nothing else they’ll fit perfectly in the overheads. I have seen some airlines weigh bags at the counter before, so I guess we’ll find out…

I’m not too concerned about the trip back cuz we’ll have some things to check anyway, but esp. on the way over I don’t wanna lose anything and be stranded in foreign lands with no supplies.

Just pack in such a way that the absolute necessities can be pulled out in a flash, should you be forced to check luggage.

Yeah, good call

I recently flew Aer Lingus within Europe (Dublin to Geneva), and my checked baggage was weighed (and, although a kg over allowed, I was waved through). My carry-on baggage was not weighed, and I really think the the policy is— as suggested earier— to discourage people from bringing on excess carry-on bags. However, with escalating fuel prices, all airlines will be looking carefully for any ways to trim their costs by reducing the weight of luggage carried on each flight, so it’s very possible that, at some point, all airlines will be weighing even carry-on luggage.

Don’t all bags go within the plane itself though? Why would it matter if your extra weight was in the cabin or the hold?

What I’d meant to emphasize is that I think that eventually there will be restrictions on the weight of both checked and carry-on baggage; maybe you’ll be allowed a certain total weight and have to pay fees if you exceed that total. All airlines will be struggling with rapidly increasing fuel costs, and they’ll try to reduce the total weight of all luggage as a way to reduce fuel costs. I don’t think they’ll be brave enough to weigh passengers yet, but there must be a difference in their costs to fly a 100-lb girl with 50 lbs of luggage vs someone like me, weighing 200 lbs with 50 lbs total luggage weight!

Well I just got back, and as others have mentioned, while the carry on limit is 13 lbs in theory, noone ever checked to make sure I wasn’t over the limit. This kinda blew my mind; the only thing I could figure is that we just kept our bags on our backs the whole time, so they must’ve figured if we were able to carry them it couldn’t have weighed too much. I was definitely waaaaaaaaaaay over the weight limit when coming back over the Atlantic though