Norwegian Air Carry-On Dimension Tolerance

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:

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.