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Flights out of Thailand · cabin rules

Read the frame, the kilos and the fee before the gate does.

Cabin frames, weight ceilings and counter fees for the carriers flying out of Thailand — in plain figures, alongside the screening items that tend to stop at the line.

The frame · the kilos · the second piece · the counter fee

The cabin tag typical figures
Frame, L × W × H 56 × 36 × 23cm
Kilos at the gate 7kg
Second piece under the seat
If the gate says no the counter sets the fee
A traveller packing clothes into a suitcase on a bedroom floor the night before a flight
Packing at home — the last moment the numbers can still change.

Sponsored Article. This page is paid promotional content created by Westcoast Digital AB. The story of Mali and Krit is illustrative. All product claims are the sponsor’s own statements. This is not an independent news article.

Tag 01 · the three sizes

Three pieces — and what each one answers to.

Three checkpoints decide a bag’s fate — the sizer at the gate, the seat space, the scale at the counter — and no two of them read the same line.

Bag 01

The cabin bag

Published frame 56 × 36 × 23 cm
Ceiling 7 kg

Read by the sizer beside the gate — wheels and handles in the count wherever the operator measures the bag extended.

Overrun: a counter fee, and the bag flies below.

Bag 02

The personal item

Published room the space under the seat
Ceiling one piece, on most fares

Checked at the seat space as you board — a laptop sleeve or a handbag, not a second suitcase in miniature.

Overrun: it merges into the cabin bag, or goes below.

Bag 03

The hold bag

Published frame 158 cm in total, L + W + H
Ceiling 20–30 kg by fare

Weighed at the counter — the scale that decides whether the shopping rides free.

Overrun: excess-weight charges, paid at the desk.

A hanging luggage scale showing a bag's weight in kilograms

Weighed at home — the cheapest moment to find the number out.

The ceilings above are the usual published figures on routes flown from Thailand. Operators set their own, and the fare decides what is included — the checker holds each airline’s current numbers. Confirm yours before the packing starts.

Tag 02 · two tapes

Two carriers can share a ticket — and disagree about your bag.

A single booking can seat two operators under one route, and the tape doing the measuring belongs to the carrier flying that leg.

Tape 01

The leg’s operator holds the tape

A regional partner on the second flight brings its own tape; its centimetres and its kilos apply, not the ones printed at booking. The allowance you were sold follows the ticket’s carrier, not always the crew waiting at your gate.

Tape 02

Wheels and handles join the count

Many frames read the bag at full extension, casters to the floor and handle pulled. A case that stands inside the lines can roll past them the moment the cage measures it moving.

Tape 03

Kilos grow between the legs

The direction home carries the shopping. Whatever flew out weighing nothing tends to come back weighing something — and the return fare has its own ceiling.

Tape 04

The way home gets read first

Check the operators on the return leg before departure. The souvenir still fits a bag that has not been zipped yet.

The useful place to read a limit is at home — with the bag still open.

Frames · the counter, four ways

Around the counter, in four frames.

Woven baskets and rattan goods hanging at a market stall in Southeast Asia
Frame 01 A market stall in the north — where the second piece usually gets bought.
An empty terminal walkway beside floor-to-ceiling windows looking onto the apron
Frame 02 The concourse before the queue builds.
A cabin crew member lifting a bag into the overhead bin of a passenger cabin
Frame 03 The bin that never gets measured.
Rows of seats in an airport waiting area beneath a glass-walled hall
Frame 04 The wait between the scale and the gate.
The story · one trip

The box that counted as a second bag.

Mali Suwannarat and her brother Krit spent the first weekend of the month in Chiang Mai, and flew back to Bangkok on the Sunday evening — one cabin bag each, and a laptop sleeve between them. On the way up, nothing was checked twice: two bags into the overhead bins, the sleeve under the seat, the sizer never came out.

The way home was the heavier direction. At the Sunday market by Tha Phae Gate, Mali bought a khantoke set — a lacquered tray with six small bowls, boxed, padded and honest about its size. It left the market in its own carry box with a woven handle, small enough to sit on a lap.

At the airport, the agent at the counter counted three pieces: the bag, the sleeve, the box. The fare allows two. The box was not oversized and it was not heavy — it was simply one piece too many, and the fee for the extra went onto a card before the bags moved on.

Second piececounted at the desk
The sizer never came out. It was never the centimetres — it was the count.
— Krit, on the trip home

The next trip started the other way round: both allowances read at home, every piece — bag, sleeve, box — listed against the fare in the checker at carryonsize.com, before anything left the house. At the counter, there was nothing left to count.

A terminal concourse at night under a glass canopy, the walkway lit above
Where the count happens — the terminal, after dark.
At the line · screening

What the tray catches.

Screening answers to the airport’s own security rules, not to the airline’s rulebook — and it asks about things the frame never mentions.

01

Power banks and spare cells

Spare cells and power banks belong in the cabin — never in luggage that heads below, however short the hop. Anything from 100 up to 160 Wh needs the airline’s nod before it flies, and two units per traveller is the usual cap.

02

Liquids and gels

Containers up to 100 ml each, together inside one clear litre bag, out of the cabin bag and into the tray.

03

Laptops and cameras

Large electronics come out of the bag and take their own pass through the scanner — the sleeve is where they go back.

04

Documents and cards

Passport, boarding pass and wallet stay on you. The tray is the last place you want to be retrieving them from.

The checker

Settle the numbers before you zip.

Airline, fare, bag — put the three in and read the answer. Free, no sign-in, and the figures are kept current.

No payment details on this page · This page is sponsored content · The checks run on carryonsize.com

Questions

Questions that come up at the counter.

Q1Whose rules does the checker carry?

A list well over a hundred long, Thai carriers included — the full-service names out of Suvarnabhumi, the low-cost fleets of Don Mueang, and the international operators flying the same routes. Figures are refreshed as allowances change.

Q2Does a check cost anything?

No, and there is nothing to sign up for. Choose the airline, key in the numbers, read the verdict. A free reference, not a shop.

Q3Are wheels and handles counted?

With the operators whose frames read the bag extended, yes. Measure the same way at home — casters on the floor, handle pulled — or the sizer will do the measuring for you at the gate.

Q4Do power banks belong in the hold?

Not in a checked or gate-checked bag, no — spare lithium stays in the cabin whatever the weight. A unit of up to 160 Wh may fly once the airline consents, and carriers usually draw the line at two per person.

Q5Who put this page together?

The page is published by Westcoast Digital AB of Trollhättan, Sweden, as paid promotional material placed for the checker’s team. Write to [email protected] with anything this page leaves unclear.

Q6Is the checking done here?

No — the figures run on the tool’s own site, carryonsize.com. This page only arranges the rules for reading.