I had that problem last year at Sydney airport, same reasoning was given. I did, however, have roughly 40 'biners of varying descriptions in there.
That said, Virgin Blue (and I believe others as well) will let you take a "single item" of checked-in sporting equipment as 5kg of your luggage allowance regardless of actual weight. That 20kg pack, including rope and trad rack? 5kg of luggage allowance, leaving you 15kg for everything else. We used it to get our gear to Nowra/Point Perp from Brisbane a few weeks ago. |