Indian airlines to follow BCAS's new 7kg, one-baggage rule from January 2025: What you need to know

The Bureau of Civil Aviation (BCAS) has recently revised the guidelines on hand baggage allowance.

Passengers are now allowed to carry only one piece of hand baggage on the aircraft. This one-baggage rule applies to both international and domestic flights.

Check out the revised BCAS guidelines:

• Passengers will have to compulsorily check in any additional baggage before boarding the flight.
• Passengers travelling in economy or premium class will be allowed to carry hand baggage with a maximum weight of 7kg.
• For passengers travelling in business class, as specified by Air India, the maximum weight of hand baggage must be 10kg.
• The guidelines also mention baggage volume along with weight and quantity. According to the guidelines, the baggage dimensions should remain below 55 cm or 21.6 inches in height, 40 cm or 15.7 inches in length, and 20 cm or 7.8 inches in width.

Some exemptions

The BCAS-mandated hand baggage guidelines are not applicable to the passengers who have booked their flight tickets before May 4, 2024.

These passengers are exempt from the revised guidelines and can carry 8 kg in economy class, 10 kg in premium economy class, and 12 kg in first or business class.

In the last few months, the number of airline passengers has increased immensely. Indian flights carried nearly 1.42 crore passengers on domestic routes in November 2024. This is approximately 12 per cent more than the same period the previous year, due to increasing air traffic demand, as Mint reported on December 25.

According to the latest data from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), “Passengers carried by domestic airlines during January-November 2024 were 1,464.02 lakh as against 1,382.34 lakh during the corresponding period of the previous year, thereby registering an annual growth of 5.91 per cent and monthly growth of 11.90 per cent.”