World's lightest carry-on luggage

By danwarne, July 20 2011
World's lightest carry-on luggage

It comes as a surprise to many travellers when they first weigh their cabin bag empty -- the average heavy-duty nylon business wheel-aboard weighs about 5KG!

That leaves a piffling 2KG for the contents of the bag, given Qantas and Virgin Australia's weight limit of 7KG.

It then becomes obvious why, on the occasions that an efficious flight attendant has insisted on weighing the cabin bag, it has always been overweight.

You can flip that equation around by investing in an ultra-light cabin bag.

One popular one that claims to be the world's lightest wheel-aboard hard-case is the XCase by Toronto-based luggage maker Heys.

It's made of ABS/polycarbonate composite which is deformable (it springs back into shape if dented) and has a frameless design, which keeps weight low.

The handle is aluminium, rather than steel, and it has two partially recessed wheels with high quality metal bearings.

If something does go wrong, though, it has a five year worldwide warranty.

The weight for the 20" model? A mere 2.3 kg.

Australian Business Traveller has seen slightly lighter bags, but they tend to be made of light fabric stretched over a frame, which makes us nervous thinking about laptops and other gadgets typically packed in carry-on.

You can order the Heys Xcase from Amazon.com for US$69.99 ($65.18), though they don't ship directly to Australia. You'll need to use a US shopping service like PriceUSA. Postage would cost approximately another US$70.

Even lighter again...

Since writing this article, one of our readers has pointed out that the Samsonite Cosmolite 55cm case is even a tad lighter, at 2.22kg.

You can read more about this case at Samsonite Australia's website.

It's made of the miraculous Cosmolite material, patented by Samsonite, that has woven/layered polypropylene for unbelievable strength. Most shops that sell Cosmolite cases have a sample of the 'fabric' available that you can bend and fold as hard as you want, and then marvel at how it springs back into shape no worse for wear.

The Cosmolite spinner has a commensurately top-of-the-line price-tag, unfortunately, at $499.

20 Jul 2011

Total posts 17

Hi Dan,

Can you advise what literage they claim the bag can hold? In addition to weight, this is the other attribute I often compare when looking at carry-on cases.

Thanks

Kevin

g3133 Banned
g3133 Banned

Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer

29 Nov 2015

Total posts 2

Samsonite 72 hours has 4 wheels and weighs 1.5kg.

The lightest incabin bag I have ever used.

Very happy with it.

QF - Red

23 Nov 2012

Total posts 38

Any chance of a revision to this in light of the new policies announced?


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