Just curious about accuracy of airport weigh scales...

[tridacna]

Inaccurate Airport Luggage Scales Could Cost You Big Money « CBS Los Angeles

 

[Kat]

At T5, in ORD, a private company certifies the scales every 3 months. I have no idea how accurate they are, but it's all we have. We can't go on the testimonial from the passenger, swearing their bag was 10 pounds lighter at home.
On the flip side, I have had many people tell me the scales are saying less then the passengers home scale. ( 3 -4 a day )
Everyone I know in the airport considers the scales accurate. We use them to weigh ourselves & no one ever says they really weigh less & the scale is wrong.

 

[DandyDon]

I hope to do a small test at the Lubbock airport Thursday, comparing all the airlines' scales of the same bag to my scales.

 

[lmorin]

I have taken a LOT of bags to Bonaire lately. Each has been weighed on my digital travel scale, then at the airport. Weights have varied from 39-75 lbs. The matches have been almost perfect. Differences, when they occur, have been a half pound or less.

The one place that extra weight tries to sneak in for the return flight is water in the BC. I have drained as much as a quart out of my wife's BC at the end of a trip.

 

[TravisD]

I just did round trip to Townsville, Australia - BWI>LAX>SYD>TSV, TSV>BNE>LAX>BWI. I had the opportunity to re-check and re-weight our bags at more than one point along the way, each direction due to Customs, etc. Based on Dandy Don's recommendations elsewhere, I picked up a cheap eBay digital luggage scale to assist in packing, and even took it along with us on the trip for the return flights, and in case there were any arguments over scale accuracy.

I found that all of the scales I encountered were pretty accurate, if not a little "light" - I was right under 50lbs on the way home, and as I recall the scales read slightly lower (I actually did measurements in Kg too for the Oz legs, just to make sure). One thing I've noticed is that the scales can vary greatly based on bag positioning -- usually in your favor. Since they have you lift your own bags up, occasionally you'll end up with part sitting on the edge of the scale, not the weighing platform itself. V Blue has nifty scales built into their counter conveyor belts, and it seemed that if you overhung the end (roller) a but it just might read a little low.

One oddity I found was that even though my bags were under the 23k/50Lb limit, they always tagged them with "Heavy" tags (noted with actual weight). Might just be them using an existing tag or something...

The baggage scales are cheap and light - no reason not to have one really just in case. As for water weight gain, I was able to dry my gear out overnight topside on the boat, and it ended up bring nearly perfectly dry after that. Suit got turned halfway thru, drying both sides (it's really the fabric facings that get wet on neoprene, not the rubber core). I left boots at home on this one - they would probably have been the hardest things to dry.

 

[Thalassamania]

I have not checked closely, but scales that are used in commerce (like at the airports) should have State Weights and Measures stickers on them listing when they were tested and by whom.

 

[DandyDon]

I have not checked closely, but scales that are used in commerce (like at the airports) should have State Weights and Measures stickers on them listing when they were tested and by whom.

I thought that was regulated but it seems that it's left up to the airlines. There are dozens of news articles about how inaccurate they are at times, up to 90% wrong in one exam by Arizona officials.

 

[Thalassamania]

Now that the scales have a real economic impact I suspect that it is illegal to use them without State stickers, the key is "used in commerce."

 

[boulderjohn]

One oddity I found was that even though my bags were under the 23k/50Lb limit, they always tagged them with "Heavy" tags (noted with actual weight). Might just be them using an existing tag or something...

When that happened to me once and I asked about it, I was told that the tag was a warning to the baggage handlers so that they use appropriate care when lifting it.

 

[SouthSideScubaSteve]

I rarely check bags unless on I'm on a diving trip or traveling with my wife (she can't travel without checking bags) so I don't have many data points to compare but I recently went on vacation to south Florida with my wife, kids and dive gear & checked multiple bags each both ways. I found that American's scales at both ORD & FLL were accurate within less than a pound compared to the "travel/bag scale" my wife picked up on sale a few weeks before the trip (before leaving home I compared the travel scale to our bathroom scale and found about the same variation)...

On a related tangent, I would reccommend a "travel/bag scale" if you can find one on sale/ for reasonable $$... It made packing to keep each bag under the limit a breeze when packing to come home!