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- From 2 February 2027, Jetstar’s cheapest fares will include only one underseat bag measuring up to 40 × 30 × 20cm.
- A standard overhead carry-on bag will require Priority Carry-on, starting from AUD$25 one way and AUD$33 between Sydney and Melbourne.
- Jetstar says the change will simplify boarding, but passengers will be paying extra for a 7kg carry-on allowance that was previously included.
- Jetstar recorded around 23.5 million passenger journeys in FY2025, meaning the new fee could add up to tens of millions of dollars a year.
There’s travelling light, and then there’s travelling with Jetstar in 2027: fitting your entire trip into one bag small enough to slide beneath the plane seat in front of you.
From 2 February 2027, that’s all Jetstar will include with its cheapest fares. The airline is scrapping its current 7kg carry-on allowance and replacing it with one underseat bag measuring no more than 40 × 30 × 20cm.
Picture the usual pre-trip pile on the bed: clothes, toiletries, chargers, medication, headphones, maybe another pair of shoes. Now imagine stuffing the lot into something roughly the size of a school backpack while leaving enough room to zip your luggage shut. Anything larger will require Priority Carry-on, starting from AUD$25 one way.
It may look like another small airline fee, but across millions of Jetstar journeys, those charges start adding up very quickly.
Your Free Carry-On Is About to Get Much Smaller on Jetstar Flights
Jetstar says the new rules will make packing simpler because staff will no longer routinely weigh cabin bags at the gate.
According to Jetstar CEO Stephanie Tully, “weighing carry-on bags at the gate can be frustrating for our customers and for our crew.” Unfortunately, Jetstar’s solution to the dreaded baggage-scale problem is to charge you to use the overhead locker instead.
Priority Carry-on includes a second bag measuring up to 56 × 36 × 23cm, along with earlier boarding. But before you start packing bricks, Jetstar still asks passengers to keep their luggage below 10kg so they can safely lift it into the overhead locker. There’s always something in the fine print.
Jetstar also reckons the new rules will free up locker space, speed up boarding and help flights leave on time. Anyone who flies regularly knows the current system can be a mess. People turn up with bulging suitcases, fight for the last patch of locker space and start rearranging their possessions while the queue stalls behind them.
But carry-on shouldn’t be some outrageous travel luxury. For many passengers, it’s the difference between paying for checked luggage and getting through a weekend away with the bare essentials. Jetstar calls that “more choice”, adding that “travelling with less means paying less”. Which sounds reasonable until travelling with less means fitting your entire trip beneath the seat in front of you.
And, while AUD$25 may not seem like much in isolation, it matters when the entire reason for booking Jetstar was to keep the trip affordable.
The EU Problem
And here is where Jetstar’s timing starts to look even worse.
The European Parliament is pushing for passengers on flights covered by EU air-passenger rules to receive one free personal item measuring up to 40 × 30 × 15cm, plus a second small cabin bag weighing up to 7kg. The proposal is still moving through the EU legislative process, but it points in the opposite direction to Jetstar’s new model.
So while European lawmakers are trying to protect the exact kind of overhead carry-on Jetstar is about to charge Australians for, Jetstar is removing its existing 7kg allowance and putting the overhead locker behind Priority Carry-on.
Apparently, what European lawmakers want treated as a basic passenger right now qualifies as an optional extra over here.
A Normal Cabin Bag Could Add $66 To Your Return Fare On Jetstar
Priority Carry-on starts at AUD$25 one way, but Jetstar lists the fees for a Sydney to Melbourne flight as starting from AUD$33. Buy it in both directions at that price and your return trip could cost another $66 before seat selection, food or any other extras, and that’s on top of the plane ticket itself.
Priority Carry-on fees for Perth to Bali start at $39 one way, while Cairns to Tokyo start at $52. That could make overhead carry-on another $104 return, assuming the same launch price is available both ways.
To put those charges into perspective, Jetstar carried around 23.5 million passengers in 2025. If Priority Carry-on is added to just one in 10 of those trips at the minimum $25 price, passengers would collectively hand over almost AUD$59 million a year for the privilege of putting a bag above their heads.
We don’t have the exact numbers on how many passengers are currently using overhead lockers, but a quick bit of back-of-the-napkin maths shows how quickly another seemingly small fee turns into serious money when you’re selling it millions of times over.
Jetstar calls this “more choice”. As a frequent traveller, it looks more like being asked to choose between paying another fee and spending the flight with your entire holiday packed around your ankles.
The airline may be removing the scales from the gate, but it’s also taking something passengers already had, selling it back to them and potentially collecting tens of millions of dollars in the process.
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