easyJet - equipment carriage

A snowHead

@Grizzler, There is a general max per bag at most airports (normally 32kg). Some airlines have a stricter policy of max per bag, and some (few) do not allow pooling weight across your group.

EasyJet have a max 32kg policy, and you are allowed to pool your weight across the bags paid for across your booking so long as total weight is less than the total pooled weight. A small hold bag gives you 15kg allowance, a standard hold bag gives you 23kg, and ski carriage gives you 20kg. You can spread your total weight allowance across the bags paid for however you like so long as no bag is more than 32kg.

I suspect the poster had actually paid for 35kg total (small hold bag plus ski carriage) but had 39kg total.

A snowHead

@zikomo, ah, right; I wasn't sure. Not flown other non-charter airlines for a long while. You're probably right, then.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

As a couple of people have pointed out now, it's for insurance purposes (one bag, one set of sports equipment). I've never been checked but does cause a bit of worry on how they would charge you (paying a fine is one thing but if they insist on the gate you need a seperate bag, that would be a problem!). Especially as my board bag is a double sized bag.

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Each time I look to add skis to my seat and checked luggage with sleazyjet it is often cheaper to fly business with another airline - £74 for both legs is pretty good in my experience

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Quick note about baggage weight pooling, the ground staff at Geneva couple of weeks ago refused to let me do this and charged me excess baggage on my ski bag (over by 2 KG), even thought my 23KG suitcase only weighed 17KG. They said sport equipment can't be pooled, I argued my case but they were adamant that I was wrong, and refused to budge. If I can be bothered I'll get in to it with Easy Jet.

Regards

Dave

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@dfhage, what was in your ski bag that caused it to be 2kg over? One pair of skis with bindings and poles surely wouldn’t have done that.

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2 pairs of skis

Dave

After all it is free

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I can echo what @dfhage said about bags at Geneva. Came back through there last week, had 1 23kg back booked, and a 20kg snowboard bag. The main bag came in at about 18kg, and the snowboard bag was just over 22kg. It wanted to charge extra for the snowboard bag despite the other bag being underweight. To resolve this, just took a couple of things out the board bag, popped it on the scales, printed the tag, and then put them back in the bag. Will be paying a bit more attention to the weight distribution for the next trip

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I have something like this

Deal: SHANJE Luggage Weight Scale for Suitcases 110 Lbs Travel Accessories High Precision Travel Digital Hanging Scales 50kg White https://amzn.eu/d/h04HpDI

Which I have to check my weights and distribution and it is small and light enough for me to take with me to make sure I am good for return trip.

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I am surprised about your bag weights though with 2 skis, we have 2 double ski bags, (one without wheels selected as min weight and long enough for hubby's skis being 190cm and max length BA will take on exchange for the hold bag). But with careful planning 2 pairs of skis and poles in each is approx 15kg?

Then 1 pair of boots added in is still under.

We carefully select seats with hubby in wing exit row with hand luggage, to take his boots in hand luggage, then fourth pair goes in one of the suitcases often split.

The Lange duo boot bag perfect for putting boots in hand luggage

So to summarise for easyJet-
Ski sports equipment paid for hold can be a ski bag and a separate boot bag, combined weight max 20kg
Hold baggage weight although paid for 23kg can be up to 32kg as long as combined weight for all paid for luggage (hold and cabin bags) total weight not exceeded BUT that doesn’t include the ski bags which are as above and can’t be pooled

Is that corrrect?

You know it makes sense.

Jumping in on the bag of this thread, as i have just had similar experience on my return via GVA on Wednesday night.

Two travelers, paid for Snowboard bag 20kg (actual 23kg, contained 3 boards, pair of bindings, boots and some outer clothing), 15kg hold bag (actual 13.5kg), 23kg hold bag (actual 14kg).

It was all fine at Luton on the way out. Could see the machine told me i had 58kg allowance and watched it tick down as i added bags....

At GVA... it told me my board bag was over weight and wouldn't let me proceed without paying for 54CHF. I have now filed a complaint and claim for a refund from Easyjet. Per lots of the above posts, policy states " If you’re travelling with family or friends on the same flight and booking, you can pool your total weight allowance. This means that the total weight allowance can be split among the total number of bags booked, as long as no single item weighs more than 32kg."

Are they going to tell me the Sports equipment isn't included in the pooling ?

I'll update this thread when i get a response from Easyjet.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

This is all very strange. And new. We have always pooled weight. And never had any problems with EasyJet at GVA or anywhere else.

I'm very interested to see what they say @Richie_S,

After having a rant, I see there is a little caveat that they may be using:

https://www.easyjet.com/en/help/baggage/sports-equipment

It states there are two size allowances for sports equipment. Small (20kg max) and Larger (32kg max).

So we do indeed need some clarity on this.

On a side not GVA is the only airport that I have ever had any disagreement with EasyJet, where once they did not want to let me use the EasyJet Plus check in area. They were very much in the wrong, and I could prove it. But they argued and argued....

A snowHead

Thanks @zikomo, I didn't have the inclination for a face to face debate with the operative at GVA.... And figured i'd challenge it later.

IF they declare i cannot pool it, then i'd argue WHY they didn't charge me on the way out.... net net i carried no more or less on the way back than the way out.

(ok, that's not strictly true... Cheese and beer consumed on the stay meant my belt was on a looser setting on the way home. But they aren't charging for 'people weight' yet, so that doesn't count)

A snowHead

@Richie_S, Yea I get it is often less hassle to just pay up and argue about it later. In my case the regular check-in queue was absolutely massive, like hours long. And I had paid to be able to use the (short queue) EasyJet Plus check-in as I had small kids. Never had an issue before. Just some officious oaf who clearly did not know what they were talking about followed by a lot of not wanting to back down once proven wrong. It was worth my while to argue then, but in your shoes I would also have just paid the excess and argued about it later as that's just less time and hassle.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

I know the pain, every time I pack the skibag just with ONE pair of skis and its always over 20kg, and I pack absolute minimum! Not sure how people get 3 pair in one bag

-dakine double roller ski bag 3kg
-skis with bindings and poles (salomon qst 106, look pivot) 7kg
-boots + helmet/googles/gloves 5.5 kg
-avalanche equipment (shovel/probe) 1kg
-knee protection/protective shorts/2 pair of skisocks 1kg
-ski pants with bib (these are bulletproof freeride pants) 1kg
-extra ski midlayer and base layer 1kg
-cotton change + slippers + small bits and pieces 1kg
thats already 20.5kg

I fly with baselayer/midlayer/skijacket/puffer on (most of them hanging outside the backpack). Electronics (camera, drone, chargers etc), knee brace. So my cabin pack (28L riding backpack) is always full packet.

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@ed48, Because they pack skis. And not absolutely everything they need for a ski holiday.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Thats fine. I guess there are different approaches to travel, I mostly use public transport, so I like to have number of bags to absolute minimum, ie packing as much as possible to ski bag.

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This is what I do and don't have any grief. I take a large wheeled ski bag, everything goes in there, including a decent size backpack. In total around 30 something KG. At the airport I take out the backpack and put the bindings & boots into it. This brings the ski bag to 20KG. The backpack goes as hold luggage. I take nothing as hand luggage. If you pay for a ski bag to go into the hold you get 1 x Ski bag up to 20KG + your usual 23KG, so no issues.

I do it like this with everything in the single ski bag initially as it makes it far easier getting on the trains to & from the airport and manoeuvring around once in the airport without dragging a case + ski bag. Once at the destination airport the backpack again goes back into the ski bag. Also, a valuable tip I've learnt (and rarely see) is hold your ski bag vertically with all the weight on the wheels in front of you, it's so much easier to manoeuvre and less strain on you. It makes it easier to get on the trains too (I need 4 to get to Gatwick check-in). Also people then don't trip over the bag, not realising your bag is like the trailer of an articulated lorry! Simples!

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After all it is free

I contacted easyJet about this and the answer I got was 'to avoid being charged for excess weight you should make sure your small sports item is less than 20kg' in the context of having a booked hold bag and small sports item and pooling the weight.

I didn't push for asking for confirmation in policies etc but that was the message from their web chat person

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@ja203, Thanks. I've made my complaint, and will revert to this post when i get a reply. Given they suggest they are "open and upfront" when it comes to luggage, if it becomes clear they don't allow pooling of the sports gear weight then they need to update their web information to make that clear.

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100% agree on that, in fact my overwhelming thought was why is there so little detailed information on their website? Nothing in booking or baggage T&C's.

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@ja203, Here's the link to the hold luggage explanation. https://www.easyjet.com/en/help/baggage/cabin-bag-and-hold-luggage#takemetohold

It states :

"Hold luggage

Each customer (including children and infants) can buy up to three hold bags.
A standard hold bag is 23kg. You can buy extra weight in 3kgs units, up to a maximum of 32kg per bag.

If you’re travelling with family or friends on the same flight and booking, you can pool your total weight allowance.

This means that the total weight allowance can be split among the total number of bags booked, as long as no single item weighs more than 32kg. Maximum total size (length + width + height) = under 275cm."

It also has a nice video that explains why paying for hold luggage is important (where it makes the point about being clear and upfront)... That video refers to Hold Luggage, and the info graphics include pictures of bikes and snowboard type bags. So clearly they consider sports equipment to be under the banner of Hold Baggage.

I went to the link above, and nothing there I can see that suggests you can have ski bag and ski boots as separate items booking only one ski bag.

I can only imagine that the web site and posting rules, are subsidised to 3rd party company in the country where nobody knows how snow and skiis looks like Smile

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

@Richie_S, step one is getting them to reply/acknowledge your complaint! I had a run in years ago with easyJet when they cancelled my flight. They wouldn’t cover costs incurred, I had to go via the small claims court where eventually after stalling as long as they could they covered my costs!,

A snowHead

Just to add my 2cents, we had the same issue at Geneva this year too.

1 Dakine Roller ski with two sets of skis, 1 pair of boots + clobber, 30.7kg
Two hold all bags with boots, helmets and normal clothes. 10 & 15kg each, both paid for 22kg.

Aware of the policy that pooling was allowed and no one bag may weigh more than 32kg, so we weighed and checked everything both sides with the sort of scales linked to above.

Edinburgh, were fine, no issues at all. Bags checked ski's to outsize baggage as normal. straight through.

GVA side however, tried charging us for excess, said we were overweight, they tried to use "the ski bag must be 20kg" line on us.
I had the policy saved down on my phone, and showed this to GVA lady at the desk. It was met with a shrug of the shoulders.
We argued back and forth using the policy as our backup (helps that my wife is fluent in French). Eventually they backed down if we agreed to move one boot from the ski bag into the other hold bag, then we were fine. Makes no sense at all.

I've no issues with the easyJet policy, it's clear and explains what you can or can't do, the problem here is the airports are taking their own interpretation of it, and thats not fair on the consumer. The policy has to be applied consistently.

A snowHead

The problem is that two pieces of information on their website conflict. One say you can pool your hold luggage, and it is reasonable to assume that skis go in the gold so are included in this policy. But the policy for “sporting goods” states skis and boots are Small” sporting goods and have a max of 20kg. I agree this is less than ideal and open to interpretation.

I suspect the problem at GVA is it is all outsourced, and there may be some incentive included to enforce the rules on behalf of EasyJet. It can’t be an airport policy as I see it because they will accept “Large” sporting goods which are much heavier.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

@cinglis, thanks for this additional feedback.

I don’t understand how the airport can interpret the policy different when it is now EasyJet machines that are doing the automated baggage processing. Surely the software governing the EJ machines in Luton is the same as in Geneva… so the outcome should be the same.

I will be persistent and I will get this resolved.

Not least, I am flying to/from GVA in April for a late season trip with my son.

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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

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I got pinged £48 in Manchester for a slightly, and I mean slightly, piece of oversized hand luggage. Easyjet waited until I got to the gate, they could have advised me (and others) at check in and I would have been able to repack into my hold luggage.

GVA is also a hotspot for vigorous enforcement from what I have seen and heard.

I'll think twice about using them if I have an alternative and if I do have to use them, I'll make sure there's no ambiguity or potential conflict.

That's my takeaway.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

For once have to defend EasyJet a bit. Just flown back from Geneva to Berlin. Booked two hold bags (23kg each allowance) and one ski bag.

One bag was just over 28kg and the other 16kg so no issues there since they pool the 46kg allowancel. My ski ‘bag’ … which is actually a hard plastic double Snowtube with two pars of skis inside weighed 19.8kg. I had anticipated a few problems since another airline had flown me out and lost my baggage thereby necessitating the need to buy new ski boots (and then delivering said baggage very shortly before I was due to leave) but everything went super smoothly and there were no issues at all.

I sympathise with the OPs issues since it does seem very unfair to make you pay twice for the same bag; if it required a ‘higher’ allowance then surely the difference between what had been paid and what should have been paid is the right cost. I think it might well be worth making a claim since it seems fairly obvious that the earlier ‘booking’ was not honoured and the higher one was paid for in full. Therefore, the service paid for was not delivered by Easyjet and should be refunded.

However, to the key question, EasyJet delivered what I’d bought; they said baggage weight could be pooled on the website and they said the skis/poles bag had to weigh under 20kg. With those achieved no-one even asked how many pairs of skis were in the bag nor quibbled at all.

I was slightly worried that since I’d had to attach my helmet to my airbag to make space for the extra pair of boots in my main baggage that someone would raise an issue about that but, again, none whatsoever.

Of course, one experience is not necessarily representative but thought it only fair to post that, despite some misgivings, in my case EasyJet were very efficient and it was a painless experience.

After all it is free

My ski bag was 3kg over the 20kg and our 2 x hold luggage about 5kg under in total. Checked in with EJ last weekend at Grenoble and nothing was said at all. I saw others in the same queue getting pinged for excess weight oversize ski bags. All rather inconsistent it appears.

The sad truth it that is seems EasyJet are within their rights to change excess baggage fees if your ski equipment is over 20kg. Clearly this has not been enforced consistently, but it is clear that the "small" sports category that includes skis and boots has a max of 20kg. The website states this. Although it could be argued that it should be made even more clear.

https://www.easyjet.com/en/help/baggage/sports-equipment

The max 20kg is clear on the link above.

I have definitely got away with it in previous years, where I was within the total allowance for all bags but had a ski bag that was over 20kg. It may be as simple as some airports charging more to handle outsize baggage that is more than 20kg, so at those airports EasyJet are more fastidious about imposing that limit.

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Hi, following on from this... I have traded a couple of emails with Easyjet customer care. They appear a little bi-polar on the matter - below is the latest response :

"Thank you for reaching out to us. We appreciate your patience while we looked into your query regarding the charges for the overweight snowboard bag on your recent flight EZS8490.

We understand your concern as you had also purchased a 15kg hold bag and a 23kg hold bag, and believe that the total luggage weight was within the combined limit of your purchased luggage. However, it's important to note that sports equipment is considered separately and not included in the combined weight allowance of hold luggage.

Sorry about the mix-up earlier regarding our luggage weight rules. Just to clear things up, the weight of your sports gear is part of the total weight allowed for checked-in bags. Do remember, both your sports kit and your checked bag should be left at the bag-drop desk.

To help sort this out, we'd appreciate it if you could share with us a photo of the payment receipt. This will help us confirm the details and provide the most appropriate support. At easyJet, we're committed to delivering the best solutions for you.

Once we get hold of your details, our goal is to respond within a week and extend our assistance further"

I have asked for further clarification and when they will process my refund.

Help!!

easyJet - equipment carriage

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