Ryanair turns screw on hold luggage

Budget airline Ryanair has announced it will "revolutionise" its ticket pricing to reward passengers who fly without hold luggage and penalise those who do.

From March 16, Ryanair will slash £2.50 off every single fare.

But, there's a catch: those carrying hold luggage will have to pay an extra £2.50 or £5.00 per bag per flight, depending on whether they pre-book it or not.

This will mean three-quarters of Ryanair passengers will either not profit or will lose out as a result of the move.

The no-frills airline has assured passengers that the shake-up will be "revenue neutral" and is also upping the total luggage weight limit from 25kgs to 30kgs.

The 25 per cent of passengers who already fly without luggage will gain £2.50 per flight.

The 50 per cent of passengers who carry one item of hold luggage will pay the same as before, Ryanair explained – but only if they pre-book.

But the airline admitted that the 25 per cent of passengers who carry more than one item of hold luggage will end up paying more than before.

However, Ryanair is convinced that all passengers will benefit as a result of reduced queues at check-in desks. Passengers travelling without hold luggage will save even more time, as they will be given priority boarding.

In a bid to persuade more passengers to carry only hand-baggage, all passengers without hold luggage will be able to check-in on ryanair.com from the same date.

Low-cost airline Flybe announced a similar overhaul of its fare system late last year.

What difference will being charged extra for baggage have on your travel plans? Or is it only right that people with luggage pay more?

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Comments

[P.Linfield]

I and many other mothers visit our families living abroad and we need to take gifts, making it essential to have luggage for the hold. However, the present allowance of 15kg is hardly enough when you take the weight of the case into consideration. The allowance of 10kg for hand luggage is quite useless as I could never carry or pull this amount. What will the 15kg hold be increased to?

[G Cox]

I have noticed now that the security staff at Stansted are starting to 'victimise' Ryanair passengers by being very strict about the weight and number of hand luggage items. I myself carry a laptop backpack with my PC and a few personal items when I board, and they keep trying to turn me back saying "it looks heavy". I guess this is BAA's reponse to losing revenue from Ryanair from not having to load the planes!

[jill]

I don't think the baggage allowance rule is very clear. They say that 50 per cent of passengers who prebook will pay the same as before. Prebook luggage or flight? And what is the new weight for cases and hand luggage? Not very specific. Anyone know?

[Jon]

Ryanair's luggage "policies" are highly passenger unfriendly. What is the purpose of insisting that passengers travelling together cannot combine baggage weight even when they remain below their combined passenger limit? The take-off weight is unchanged and so Ryanair's fuel-load/cost is unchanged. The only result is inconvenience at the check-in counter for the passengers concerned and for the people queueing behind them - and the inconvenience of re-packing seems to affect at least 50 per cent of their passengers.

This policy appears perverse and pointless, and the apparent savings offered by Ryanair are definitely not worth the grief once you have experienced the off-hand and substandard customer service they actually deliver.

[Steven Andrew]

When this baggage policy was announced, consumers were told that the price of tickets would be reduced accordingly so that people checking just one bag in would not see any difference in price. As they also increased the checked baggage allowance to 20kg, I thought that overall it was a good deal.

In practice, prices have not fallen. The cheapest ticket from Granada-Liverpool (my regular route) twelve months ago was £12.49 - the same price that it is today.

I have also noticed that people booking flights after November 2006 are now only allowed 15kg of luggage i.e. the pre-baggage charge level. I cant find any announcements on Ryanair's website about this, only a small comment in the small print. Are they trying to catch consumers out and hit them with more excess baggage charges?

With the combination of Ryanair's baggage allowance, travel to secondary airports, expensive refreshments and unsociable flight schedules, I now find that its cheap flights are a false economy. I am a regular flyer and I now find that other airlines (even the major carriers) are frequently cheaper, and provide a far higher standard of service. If they are not careful, Ryanairs bullish attitude to customer service is going to bite them hard if they are not careful.

[Robert Finch]

Your complaint against Ryanair seems to undo itself with the stats you give. You complain that the cheapest ticket you can get on your route is £12.49 - the same as a year ago - as if this were a bad thing. Steven, it's still only £12.49 to fly from Granada to Liverpool!

Of course the low-cost airlines have to make their money from somewhere, when they are selling seats this cheap. Personally, I'm just pleased that we now have a choice of how to fly. Sometimes, if I'm travelling with my kids, for example, I want to pay a bit more to have an all-frills carrier and the comforts that come with it. If I'm just travelling on my own and simply want to get there, then a flight with Ryanair for £12.49 and sandwich from the airport is all I need. I don't want to sound like an old curmudgeon, but, if I'd been told ten years ago that I could fly for those prices, I never would have believed. Bring on the low-cost revolution...

[Steven Andrew]

As a response to the message above, I think you have missed my point. I agree that low-cost airlines have to make a profit from somewhere, and that people who book flights should know what to expect.

My problem with Ryanair is that I feel that they are actively attempting to deceive their customers. If you read my post completely, you will see that my main concern is the "silent" reduction in baggage allowance, coupled with prices that are actually increasing when you take into account taxes and charges.

This is in stark contrast to the "consumer revolution" fanfare that greeted us a year ago, when they said that baggage charges would be offset by lower basic fares.

You say that you prefer to travel Ryanair when alone because it is cheaper. Everything considered, Ryanairs cheapest fare on my route is around £65- £10 cheaper than British Airways Manchester-Malaga basic fare. I appreciate that low fares are harder to find on major carriers, and I applaud Ryanair for making air travel affordable to everyone. But if they carry on treating passengers as a neccessary evil it is eventually going to bite them hard. They would benefit as a company by showing more consideration to their customers.

[s.mcgovern]

I have just flown from liverpool to murcia with 2 young children, who took their own small cases. Weight in their cases was less than 10kg each as we had loaded their clothes into our 2 larger cases (which should have made sense), except when we went to check in our baggage we had a total overweight baggage charge of £110.00. Had we had bigger suit cases for the children they would not have managed to pull their cases. Surely the collective baggage weight should still exist in these circumstances. So much for this being a cheap airline.

[N Nguyen]

Ryanair limits of 15kg checked-in baggage is not realistic for passengers. The typical luggage case is roughly 3-5Kg alone. What do you do with 5Kg of content? They should raise the standard to 32Kg as usual or offer cheap tickets for customers without checked-in luggage.
I travel internationally and mistakenly booked Ryanair until I saw the customer unfriendly baggage rules. Next time, easyJet and Berlin Air will get my money. No more Ryanair.

[k. douglas]

This IS NOT a cheap airline. It is a pure con. We were also flying on holiday with two children and were charged £85 for excess baggage. On top of this we also had to wait in two queues. Total = 2 hours to check in and lots of unhappy passengers. We will now pay the extra on other carriers so we know what we are paying for instead of being ripped off.

[Alexander Howard]

Little confusion affecting us. My kid is three years old. Her Ryanair ticket cost the same as my wife's. The confusing question: is she allowed her own 15kg luggage? Someone please clarify. Thanks

[Sabrina Wolfe]

Dear Alexander,

Your daughter, as she is travelling on a full price adult ticket, will be entitled to the full baggage allowance of 15kg. It's worth remembering as well, that you can't pool your baggage allowance on Ryanair; each passenger must carry no more than 15kg, so your daughter will need to have her own bag.

Hope this helps,
Sabrina Wolfe, editor Cheap Flilght News.

[ben]

Ryanair treats Visa debit cards as "credit cards" and dishonestly charge accordingly. On two occasions I have booked with Ryanair and if I tried to choose their debit card option on the menu when paying it would not progress the booking. Only when I treated my debit card as a credit card would it allow me to proceed with booking. I have emailed and faxed Ryanair several times but of course no reply. I have now written to the Office of Fair Trading and the consumer programme Working Lunch which featured these credit card charges thisweek. Has anyone else experienced this?

[grumpy young man]

Ryanair is a cheap airline but only if you play by their rules. If you travel light with just a small piece of hand luggage, check in online, and book early it could work out really cheap. A return flight could cost you 50 euros, taxes and charges included.

The problem is that we're talking about air travel where people will often go for days and weeks and need more than the clothes they are wearing. Ryanair wants to offer a rapid shuttle service a bit like a city bus going from stop-to-stop with people getting quickly on and off. To do so it is changing us slowing but surely. It is moulding the way people think and the way we travel. Ryanair changes the passenger and not the other way around.

If you meet Michael O'Leary, the Chief Exec, and complain he'll just tell you that if you don't like it get lost and fly with someone else. He won't listen attently and take on board (excuse the pun) what you have to say. Will this last? This off-hand and belittling treatment doesn't sit well with me but I do fly Ryanair as many flight times suit me.

But I don't agree that its necessarily all that cheap. For example Valladolid / Charleroi for 260 euros. I don't think its cheap for a short flight between two small regional airports and thats booking 3 weeks before. I´ve just looked now (1 week before the flight) and the same would cost more than 350 euros and rising.

And whether you pay 1 euro for the flight or 400 euros the service is still poor. Overpriced food and drinks (which I have never bought), rude flight attendents and rally style landings. The only thing I can give them credit for is getting the bags onto the carousel quickly. How long before they will dump them onto the tarmac and tell you to pick them up yourself?

[michele faulkner]

Just read that each passenger is only allowed 15kg hold baggage. We are going away for 10 days - surely this is not a realistic weight for that length of time?

Does anyone know how much extra Ryanair charge per kg for going over?

[The Cheapflights Team]

Hi Michele,

Ryanair's basic allowance for hold luggage is indeed 15kg per person. The excess baggage fee is £15 / 15 euro per kilo, and can only be purchased at the airport ticket desk.

You can check out Ryanair's Table of Fees for more info.

Kind regards,

The Cheapflights Team

[chris]

Ryanair is by far and away one of the best airlines for cheap flights and get their punters by their slick advertising. If you are fooled the first time, play by their rules next time and read the small print carefully.

Just off to Klagenfurt from Stansted (London) for £30 return including taxes etc. No extra (presents)luggage, booking-in is with online ticket and not buying any food from them. Brilliant price. Thanks Ryanair for allowing the not so well off to fly.

This must be about my fifteenth trip with you!