Air Travel Definitions - Load Restriction - Airline Words

What is a load restriction?
Sometimes aircraft weight needs to be reduced due to fuel requirements, luggage weight, or cargo and mail. When the weight and balance of an aircraft requires it, a load restriction means that some things must be left behind, or a reduction in the number of passengers allowed on board may be reduced. Sometimes load restrictions are done well ahead of time, sometimes close to the last minute.

Why are there load restrictions?
Sometimes the load agent is simply unable to reduce the aircraft weight from fuel, baggage, cargo, mail, or passengers and the choice may be left to limiting the numbers of passengers allowed on board in order to reduce the plane's weight.

Another scenario is there could be a crew restriction - so if only 2 flight attendants are available instead of 3, then a flight will only be able to carry the amount of passengers that 2 flight attendants can attend to. Normally this ranges from 40 to 50 passengers per flight attendant. So if you are on a flight that can carry 110 passengers, and only two flight attendants are available, then the airport agents are alerted to the load restriction and may only put 80 passengers on board for example, even though the plane can seat 110.

How can a load restriction impact your flight?

You may hear an announcement soliciting for volunteers to take another flight. Instead of saying it is because of an oversell, a gate agent may say something along the lines of "due to a load restriction, we will be looking for 3 volunteers to take a late flight".

You or your luggage could potentially be left behind.