Thai Lion Air includes a free checked bag with every domestic ticket by default. That is unusual for a low cost carrier, and it is the anchor of the Thai Lion Air baggage allowance. Most budget rivals sell the first checked piece as an add on from the start.
The rest of the allowance is a prepaid system for buying more weight before you fly. Thai Lion Air is not the same airline as Lion Air in Indonesia. Both fly under the Lion Air Group.
Thai Lion Air is based in Bangkok and carries the code SL. It publishes its own rules on lionairthai.com. Figures for the Indonesian carrier do not transfer here.
What is included with a domestic ticket
Thai Lion Air’s own baggage page sets a free checked allowance of 10 kilograms in one piece on domestic tickets. That rule applies to travel from October 1, 2020 onward. Tickets booked earlier carried a larger 20 kilogram allowance across up to three pieces.
Either way, a checked bag comes with the fare rather than being sold as a separate add on from the start. That is the part of the Thai Lion Air baggage allowance most travelers do not expect from a budget carrier.
The airline does not publish a matching free allowance for international flights on that same page. Confirm your included weight at booking or on your e-ticket. Do not assume the domestic figure carries over to an international route.
Buying extra weight through Lion Baggage
Need more than the free allowance, Thai Lion Air sells it through a prepaid add on called Lion Baggage. You buy it in kilogram blocks ahead of departure. The airline states it must be purchased at least three hours before your flight.
Buy earlier and the per kilogram rate is lower than buying closer to the day.
Two hard caps apply no matter how much you prepay. Total baggage on the booking cannot exceed 45 kilograms. No single piece can weigh more than 32 kilograms.
That second cap matters if you plan to pack one oversized duffel instead of two normal bags. Handlers worldwide tend to enforce a 32 kilogram single piece limit for their own safety, not just as an airline rule.
Cabin baggage: the gap in the airline’s own page
Here is the one figure Thai Lion Air does not spell out on its current page: a cabin bag weight or size limit in centimeters and kilograms. Older customer service replies quoted online have mentioned a single piece near 7 kilograms. That number does not appear on lionairthai.com itself, so this page is not treating it as confirmed.
If your cabin bag is anywhere near standard carry-on size, plan on it being weighed. Keep the bag light enough that a check-in agent has no reason to look twice.
What travelers actually report at the airport
Forum accounts from Bangkok routes describe carry-on enforcement as inconsistent. One frequent flyer discussing Thai Lion Air’s hand baggage policy on a Bangkok travel forum said plenty of passengers board with two or three bags, some visibly oversized. Low cost carriers in the region get described the same way: lax on this one specific rule.
That lines up with the airline’s own page skipping the number entirely. Without a published limit, staff have less to point to at the gate.
Enforcement swings by station and by how busy the flight is that day. Treat the gate as the strict version of the rule, not the forum reports. A bag that gets waved through on one route can get pulled aside on the next, so pack for the strict reading of the Thai Lion Air baggage allowance rather than the lucky one.
How Thai Lion Air compares to regional peers
Within Southeast Asia, Thai Lion Air sits alongside carriers like AirAsia, Scoot, and VietJet Air. All three sell checked baggage as a separate add on rather than bundling it in.
Full service competitors on the same Bangkok routes, including Thai Airways, include a larger checked allowance without the prepaid weight blocks Thai Lion Air uses.
Pricing a trip against several of these carriers, run the numbers through the baggage cost calculator before you book. A bundled bag on one airline can beat a cheaper base fare plus an add on somewhere else.
The bottom line
The Thai Lion Air baggage allowance starts more generous than the low cost label suggests. A checked bag is built into domestic fares by default. What the airline does not do is publish a cabin bag weight limit.
That leaves the cabin rule effectively unwritten at the gate. Pack your carry-on light and confirm your international checked weight before you fly.
Treat any prepaid extra baggage as cheaper the earlier you buy it. For general limits beyond this one carrier, the checked baggage guide covers what most airlines have in common.
Some links on this page are Amazon affiliate links. If you buy through one, Carry On Sizes may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. It never changes what we recommend. How this works.
More airlines in Asia
See every carrier in the Asia index.