Upvote:1
Let me emphasize: noone cares about volumes. Gate agents might force you to put your luggage in the sizer which is a bit bigger than the published dimensions, for the personal item it's 9" x 11" x 18". Your bag won't fit so I would not risk it.
Upvote:6
United supposedly cancelled my flight and/or reservation, so, I flew Delta and Southwest. They didn't seem to care at all, and noone even bothered to weigh, count or measure anyone's carry-ons.
I did see the same measuring device at United as depicted on their web-site, which lets one measure both the personal item, as well as carry-on bag; however, I haven't seen anyone actually using it.
Upvote:11
Depends, but you're probably OK. I always travel with a rollaboard and a largish backpack, and I've never had any questions from a legacy carrier, much less attempts to measure it. Instead of measuring racks, I think the intuitive measure is "will it fit under your seat", and if it looks like it will, you're golden.
Now LCCs tend to be a lot more strict and may define personal items a lot more strictly or ban them outright, so I wouldn't try this on (say) Ryanair, but that's another story.