Luggage capacity: what fits in a sedan, an SUV and a Sprinter

The single most common reason a chauffeur and a traveller have an awkward conversation at an airport kerb is luggage. Not the number of passengers — people are easy to count — but the number and shape of the cases, which travellers round down honestly and optimistically. This guide is the arithmetic we use, and a few notes on the items that break it.

What we mean by a case

A case, in every capacity figure we publish, means a standard checked suitcase: the size airlines accept at the counter and most people wheel through an arrivals hall. A cabin bag is not a case for our purposes, and neither is a laptop bag or a handbag — those travel in the cabin with you. The figures are deliberately conservative. They describe what fits in the luggage compartment with the boot lid closing properly and nothing resting on a passenger’s knees.

The fleet, as it stands today

That table is read from the fleet itself rather than typed, so it is what the cars actually carry today. The booking flow uses the same numbers and will not offer you a vehicle that cannot take the party you entered, which quietly prevents most of the problems this article describes.

Three and three is the sedan’s honest limit

An executive sedan — the Mercedes-Benz S-Class or the BMW 7 Series — carries three passengers and three cases. It is a genuinely comfortable three, with room to work in the back on the way in from the airport, and it is a real three cases rather than three if one of them is small. Four adults in a sedan is legal and unpleasant; four adults with four cases does not happen at all. If your party is four, you are in an SUV, and it is better to learn that here than at a kerb in Etobicoke at 06:00.

Count the cases before you count the people. The cases are what decides the car.

The SUVs, and why one of them takes a seventh case

The Cadillac Escalade ESV and the Lincoln Navigator L each take six passengers and six cases, which is the configuration most family arrivals and small executive parties need. The Chevrolet Suburban takes six passengers and seven cases: the same seating, slightly more room behind the third row. That seventh case sounds like a detail until you are a party of six coming back from two weeks away, at which point it is the difference between one vehicle and two.

All three are four-wheel drive year round and run dedicated winter tyres from November to April, which is why they do most of our airport work between December and March regardless of party size.

Twelve and twelve: the executive van

Above six passengers the answer is the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter Executive, which seats twelve with twelve large cases and keeps everybody in one vehicle. For a visiting team this is almost always cheaper than two SUVs as well as simpler: one chauffeur, one arrival time, one set of instructions, and no colleague stranded in the second car that got stuck on the 401. It is also the vehicle we send when a party is nominally six but travelling with display materials, sports equipment or a fortnight of luggage.

The stretch is a room, not a boot

The Lincoln MKT Stretch seats eight in a lounge configuration and takes four cases, because the space that would be luggage capacity in another vehicle is cabin in this one. That is the right trade for an event and the wrong one for an airport run, which is why we do not offer it on airport transfers at all. If you want a stretch at one end of a trip and luggage at the other, the luggage travels in a second vehicle.

The things that are not cases

• Golf clubs. A full bag occupies roughly the space of a large case and will not stand upright in a sedan boot. Tell us the number of bags.
• Skis and boards. Long, awkward and best in an SUV or the van; in winter they arrive with boots and bags that are cases in their own right.
• Musical instruments. A cello or a double bass often needs its own seat, which changes the passenger count rather than the luggage count.
• Child seats. Forward-facing seats and boosters are offered as extras in the booking flow and fitted before the car leaves the yard.
• Pushchairs and travel cots. They are cases for planning purposes, and a folded pushchair is a large one.
• A folding wheelchair, walker or rollator travels in the luggage compartment of the SUVs and the executive van, and chauffeurs assist at the kerb.

When a party is borderline

We send the larger car. Six passengers with seven cases, or four adults with skis, sit exactly on the boundary of two classes, and dispatch would rather move you up a class than apologise on a forecourt. On a fixed-fare airport transfer the class is quoted before you confirm, so you will always see which vehicle you are getting and what it costs — there is no upgrade sprung on you afterwards.

We do not operate a wheelchair-accessible vehicle in which a passenger can remain seated. If that is what your trip needs, tell us and we will say so plainly rather than take the booking and hope. Every vehicle page publishes its own passenger and luggage figures; the fleet index is the quickest way to compare them, and a run from North York with the right car booked is a quieter morning than the same run with the wrong one.