Airlines are tightening their restrictions on baggage more and more each year. How many of us have had to hastily repack bags into carry ons and vice versa while trying to check in? Just about everyone, right? Enter Condor. The discount airline branch of Lufthansa just launched a new program that eases our packing woes by 1 kilo, or 2.2 pounds.
This summer, Condor started the Buch an Bord (Book on Board) program across Germany. Once a traveler gets a sticker after buying a book from a participating shop, that passenger will be allowed one extra kilo of books in their carry-on luggage free of charge. The German Booksellers and Publishers Association claims that the program “has encountered a huge and very positive response. All 5,000 bookstores in Germany were equipped with the campaign stickers and the bigger part of them are participating.” That’s a lot of bookstores. Basically if you’re traveling and pick up a book, you can actually bring it home now instead of leave it on rickety bookshelf in a dank hostel common room.
So what does that extra kilo really get you? You can take one copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which weighs in at 1.08 kilograms. Four paperback copies of Crime and Punishment at 250 grams each. The whole paperback edition of Game of Thrones’ Song of Ice and Fire weighs in at a hefty 2.4 kilograms, so it may be best to leave that one at home. Or you can take five Kindle Paperwhites which weigh in at 200 grams each — that’s literally tens of thousands of books.
(Via The Guardian)
