Emirates Carry On Size Restrictions

[Mark A Ouellette]

Emirates Airlines which I will be flying from the USA to Zimbabwe lists the maximum allowable size for an economy class carry on as:

21.6” x 14.9” x 8.6” (55 x 38 x 22 cm)

It is the maximum allowable 8.6” depth that troubles me. I desire to travel with a hard side carry on, preferably a lockable Pelican Air 1535 with dimensions of:

Exterior (L X W X D): 21.96" x 13.97" x 8.98" (55.8 x 35.5 x 22.8 cm)

If Emirates personnel force me to try to insert a slightly oversize carry on into their "Does it Fit" baggage sizer, there goes my carry on into never never land

Most other lockable hard sided carry on are 9+” in depth.

Has anyone flying Emirates experienced having to check their slightly oversize carry on?

 

[MacJenkins]

I’ve flown Emirates to Africa 8 or 9 times. Just flew home from Harare 2 days ago. Never had them so much as look at my carryon. And I had two this time both bigger than your dimensions. If you fly buisness class almost every seat has its own overhead bin that is a good 4’ wide.

 

[Racer00]

Mark, I flew Emirates from ORD to HRE last December. Cattle Class with firearms.
I was worried about the same issue and while I usually travel with a large carryon and a briefcase, I elected to leave the briefcase. When I boarded I was amazed at what they were allowing as carryons. I could have lived two weeks in Alaska with the pack sizes people were bringing on. No one said anything. Several had two large backpacks/duffels. I could have brought my couch.
Just my experience though.
Jody

 

[buck wild]

Only time my carry on was actually weighed was by Emirates in 2018. I was over by 3 lbs. I removed a couple of items, handed them to my wife, who had already cleared carry-on weigh-in. Afterwards, I took items back from her and put them back in my carry on

 

[mark-hunter]

Has anyone flying Emirates experienced having to check their slightly oversize carry on?

I flew with Emirates many times, when I worked in Abu Dhabi. And my next safari is with Emirates.
And I flew with other airlines many times (an average of 12 intercontinental flights per year).
Nobody ever checked the size of my carry-on luggage.

When you come to check in, do not even look in the direction of the size check box, which stays nearby.

The worst thing that may happen is that on the boarding of some smaller airplane, they take a bigger carry-on luggage, to put it in temporary storage, and then return to the passenger after landing. This happened a few times (fewer than 5 times) in the last 15 years, with an average of 12 trips per year. Never on Emirates.

They will check the weight. So do not have overweight carry on.

 

[rookhawk]

Emirates Airlines which I will be flying from the USA to Zimbabwe lists the maximum allowable size for an economy class carry on as:

21.6” x 14.9” x 8.6” (55 x 38 x 22 cm)

It is the maximum allowable 8.6” depth that troubles me. I desire to travel with a hard side carry on, preferably a lockable Pelican Air 1535 with dimensions of:

Exterior (L X W X D): 21.96" x 13.97" x 8.98" (55.8 x 35.5 x 22.8 cm)

If Emirates personnel force me to try to insert a slightly oversize carry on into their "Does it Fit" baggage sizer, there goes my carry on into never never land

Most other lockable hard sided carry on are 9+” in depth.

Has anyone flying Emirates experienced having to check their slightly oversize carry on?

I think they also restrict to 12lbs for the carry on if we’re citing the letter of the rules?

I use a heavy canvas and leather duffel as my carry-on. I’ve used it on 10+ safaris via emirates. I’d wager it weighs about 50lbs and contains all my essentials, plus binos, plus my rifle scopes, all permits, etc.

As a pro, it’s unstructured so I could just pull stuff from it until it fits the test cube, but I’ve never, ever been challenged.

As a con, its really heavy to carry around 50lbs on the shoulder.

As a pro, they’ve never weighed my carry-on or I’d be cooked.


I would think a structured pelican case will garner more attention than me carrying my soft duffel bag on the plane, even though my duffel is holding about 4x more stuff than your hard side pelican.