Checked baggage is

luggage Baggage or luggage consists of bags, cases, and containers which hold a traveler's personal articles while the traveler is in transit. A modern traveler can be expected to have packages containing clothing, toiletries, small possessions, trip ...

delivered to an

airline An airline is a company that provides air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for codeshare agreements, in which ...

train In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and transport people or freight. Trains are typically pulled or pushed by locomotives (often k ...

for transportation in the hold of an

aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines. ...

or baggage car of a

passenger train A passenger train is a train used to transport people along a railroad line. These trains may consist of unpowered passenger railroad cars (also known as coaches or carriages) hauled by one or more locomotives, or may be self-propelled; self p ...

. Checked baggage is inaccessible to the passenger during the flight or ride, as opposed to carry-on baggage. This baggage is limited by airlines with regard to size, weight, and number, usually dependent upon the fare paid, or class of ticket. Baggage exceeding the limits is regarded as ''excess baggage''.

Checked baggage on airlines

Checked baggage policies

Every airline has its own policies with regard to baggage allowance. Often the policy is also dependent on where the flight goes to or comes from. Tickets executed by multiple airlines may have different rules. Usually the exact conditions of a specific booking are mentioned in the ticket information online. On short-haul internal flights in the US and Canada, with some exceptions, checked baggage is no longer complimentary with most discounted economy tickets, and must be paid for in addition to the ticket price; a passenger generally has to hold a higher or full fare economy ticket, travel in a premium cabin, hold elite status on an airline, or an airline credit card to be afforded complimentary checked baggage. For long-haul and transoceanic flights, checked baggage is included as standard.

Low-cost carriers A low-cost carrier or low-cost airline (occasionally referred to as '' no-frills'', ''budget'' or ''discount carrier'' or ''airline'', and abbreviated as ''LCC'') is an airline that is operated with an especially high emphasis on minimizing ope ...

such as

Ryanair Ryanair is an Irish ultra low-cost carrier founded in 1984. It is headquartered in Swords, Dublin, Ireland and has its primary operational bases at Dublin and London Stansted airports. It forms the largest part of the Ryanair Holdings family ...

in Europe and

AirAsia Capital A Berhad, () operating as AirAsia (stylized as ''airasia'') is a Malaysian multinational low-cost airline headquartered near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It is the largest airline in Malaysia by fleet size and destinations. AirAsia operat ...

in Asia charge for checked baggage, whilst for full-service airlines the cost is included in the ticket price.

Passenger-baggage reconciliation

According to the rules of most air transportation authorities, such as the U.S.

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...

and

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been ...

Joint Aviation Authorities The Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) was an associated body of the European Civil Aviation Conference representing the civil aviation regulatory authorities of a number of European States who had agreed to co-operate in developing and implement ...

, should passengers flying internationally with checked baggage fail to arrive at the departure gate before the flight is closed, that person's baggage must be retrieved from the aircraft hold before the flight is permitted to take off. For Singapore, passengers with prohibited items are required to take it out from the bags retrieved at the check-in counter, failing which the baggage will be flagged with prohibited items and will be dumped away before boarding. In the United States, this does not apply to domestic flights since all bags are required to go through explosive detection machines (EDS) prior to loading. Making sure passengers board flights onto which they have checked baggage is called "passenger-baggage reconciliation" and is accomplished automatically through two commercially available systems. The security presumption of passenger-baggage reconciliation is that terrorists will not want to kill themselves, and will not board an aircraft if they have caused a bomb to be placed in its hold. This presumption does not hold true of

suicide bombers A suicide attack is any violent attack, usually entailing the attacker detonating an explosive, where the attacker has accepted their own death as a direct result of the attacking method used. Suicide attacks have occurred throughout history ...

. Unaccompanied suitcases led to the downing of four flights, when a bomb inside the suitcase exploded: *1983:

Gulf Air Flight 771 A gulf is a large inlet from the ocean into the landmass, typically with a narrower opening than a bay, but that is not observable in all geographic areas so named. The term gulf was traditionally used for large highly-indented navigable bodies ...

*1985: Air India Flight 182 *1988:

Pan Am Flight 103 Pan Am Flight 103 was a regularly scheduled Pan American World Airways, Pan Am transatlantic flight from Frankfurt to Detroit via a stopover in London and another in New York City. The transatlantic leg of the route was operated by ''Clipper M ...

*1989: UTA Flight 772

Restrictions

Spare lithium-ion batteries, inclusive of battery packs and powerbanks are not allowed on checked-in luggage.

Excess baggage

Excess baggage is the amount of baggage that is in excess of the free allowance in size, number, or weight permitted for the journey. At the carrier's discretion, this may be carried at an extra charge, but no guarantee is made and it may have to be sent as

freight Cargo consists of bulk goods conveyed by water, air, or land. In economics, freight is cargo that is transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. ''Cargo'' was originally a shipload but now covers all types of freight, including trans ...

instead. Some airlines impose excess baggage embargoes on certain (usually smaller) routes, indicating that they will accept no (or very little) excess baggage.

Notes

References

{{Commercial air travel Luggage