Käsimatkatavarassa on nousukortti ja passi.

Finnish forms compounds very freely, so ideas that English writes as several words often become one word in Finnish.

käsimatkatavarassa can be broken down like this:

• käsi = hand
• matkatavara = luggage
  
  • and matkatavara itself is matka
    • tavara = travel + goods/things
• -ssa = in

So käsimatkatavarassa means in the carry-on luggage / in the hand luggage.

-ssa / -ssä is the inessive case, which usually means in or inside something.

So:

• käsimatkatavarassa = in the carry-on luggage

A useful mini-set:

• käsimatkatavarassa = in the carry-on luggage
• käsimatkatavarasta = out of / from the carry-on luggage
• käsimatkatavaraan = into the carry-on luggage

In Finnish, käsimatkatavara is often treated as a collective noun, much like luggage or baggage in English. So the singular can refer to your carry-on luggage as a whole.

If you specifically wanted to talk about several separate items, Finnish could use a plural or a more specific word, depending on context. But in travel language, singular käsimatkatavara is very normal.

Finnish has no articles. That means nousukortti can mean a boarding pass or the boarding pass, and passi can mean a passport or the passport, depending on context.

So this sentence could be translated in more than one natural way, for example:

• There is a boarding pass and a passport in the carry-on luggage.
• The boarding pass and passport are in the carry-on luggage.

English forces you to choose an article; Finnish often does not.

This is a very common Finnish pattern: a location comes first, and then Finnish says what is there. In this kind of existential sentence, singular on is very natural before a list of items.

So:

• Käsimatkatavarassa on nousukortti ja passi.

means something like:

• In the carry-on luggage there is a boarding pass and a passport.

If you want to focus on the documents themselves as the topic, you can also say:

• Nousukortti ja passi ovat käsimatkatavarassa.

That version is closer to:

• The boarding pass and passport are in the carry-on luggage.

They are in the nominative singular, which is the basic dictionary form. Here they name the items that are present in that place: one boarding pass and one passport.

Compare:

• Käsimatkatavarassa on passi. = There is a passport in the carry-on luggage.
• Käsimatkatavarassa on passeja. = There are passports in the carry-on luggage.

So the basic form here fits the idea of one whole item of each kind.

Yes. Finnish word order is flexible, and this order highlights the location first:

• Käsimatkatavarassa on nousukortti ja passi.

This is natural if the real point is what is in the carry-on luggage.

If the real point is where the boarding pass and passport are, Finnish would more naturally say:

• Nousukortti ja passi ovat käsimatkatavarassa.

So the two versions are close in meaning, but the focus is different.

Nousukortti is the standard Finnish word for boarding pass.

It is a compound:

• nousu = ascent / boarding
• kortti = card

Even if the boarding pass is digital and shown on a phone, nousukortti is still the normal word.

It means in / inside it. The ending -ssa clearly gives the idea of being inside something.

If you wanted to say on top of the carry-on luggage, Finnish would use a different expression, for example:

• käsimatkatavaran päällä = on top of the carry-on luggage

So this sentence clearly says the boarding pass and passport are inside the carry-on luggage.