CarryHaulDepot

Where this sits on the trip

  1. Stage 1
    Packing at Home

    How much it holds

  2. Stage 2
    The Front Door

    What it weighs when you pick it up

  3. Stage 3
    The Gate Sizer

    Whether the whole object fits a metal frame

  4. Stage 4
    The Overhead Bin

    Whether it shares a bin without a fight

  5. Stage 5
    The Baggage Belt

    What survives a chute, a stack and a belt

  6. Stage 6
    The Hotel Room

    Whether it opens flat in a small room

Stage 2 of 6The Front Door

The Front Door

What does it weigh in your hand?

What this stage asks

You pick the bag up, and the whole question of the trip changes. On the floor it was a volume. In your hand it is a weight, and it will be a weight for every minute between here and the hotel room.

The number that decides this test is the empty weight, because the empty weight is subtracted from your allowance before you have packed anything. A case that weighs four kilograms empty and a case that weighs six kilograms empty are two kilograms apart on the check-in scale, permanently, on every flight you ever take with them.

Across all forty-seven listings on this site, the number of them that state an empty weight is zero. Not a low number. None at all. It is the single most consistent silence in the catalog, and it is the reason this stage exists as a page of its own.

What the listings answer

Counted from the 47 listings gathered on this site.

  • The word lightweight appears on several listings, most often on organizer sets, with no figure of any kind attached to it.
  • One backpack listing states padded shoulder straps, which is a claim about how a weight is carried rather than about what the weight is.
  • Several duffel listings state foldable and packable construction, which is genuinely a weight argument: a bag that folds flat is a bag you did not carry on the way out.
  • Materials are sometimes named, and a named polymer such as ABS or polypropylene is at least a hint about mass. It is a hint, not a figure, and none of these listings turns it into one.

What nobody states

Not a shortlist of the vague ones. These are figures that appear on no listing in the catalog at all.

  • Not statedThe empty weight of the bag, on any of the forty-seven listings, in any unit.
  • Not statedThe weight of an organizer set, which goes into the case before your clothes do. A fourteen-piece set is fourteen zips and fourteen panels of fabric.
  • Not statedThe weight of a luggage cover, which is a layer that travels with the case.
  • Not statedHow much of the case weight is wheels and handle mechanism, which on a hardside spinner is a significant share of it.

Worth being careful about

  • Your carrier publishes its own weight allowances for cabin and checked bags. We do not print figures, because they differ by carrier, by fare and by route, and they change.
  • A bathroom scale will weigh a bag well enough for this purpose: stand on it holding the bag, stand on it without, subtract.
  • Compression organizers change how much space a load takes and leave its weight exactly where it was.
  • We make no claims about lifting, carrying or what any weight is comfortable for anyone. That is not a judgment a website can make for you.

A stated size is the size of the body. Wheels, feet and an extended telescoping handle are not usually counted inside it, and the frame at a gate counts all of them.

Where to read next

The numbers behind this stage

Where it shows up in the catalog

Sources