Ryanair’s latest baggage policy? Again, it’s another case of smoke and mirrors.
Ryanair’s press release indicates that passengers have to pay for priority boarding if they wish to carry two bags. This is misleading. In reality, as before, passengers can take the standard sized cabin suitcase plus a second handbag/laptop/duty free bag. The only difference is that the cabin sized suitcase will be taken from the passenger at the gate and placed in the hold AT NO EXTRA CHARGE.
For anyone who has flown with Ryanair in the last year, it has become customary for approximately 40 queuing passengers to have their cabin baggage tagged and placed in the hold. So why the change? Ryanair’s attempt to get passengers to pay for additional hold luggage failed and it ended up that there was not enough overhead luggage space to carry all the cabin bags. In addition, priority boarders have been placing their bags in the first available bins to ensure a speedy exit upon arrival.
This has resulted in other passengers having to place their luggage further down the aircraft, past their allocated seat. Combined with Ryanair’s policy of deliberately splitting up passengers who haven’t paid for their seat, chaos has ensued upon arrival at the destination airport.
But it is important to make your readers aware that it is not compulsory or necessary to pay the additional priority boarding fee to continue to take two bags when travelling.
The only thing that has changed is that the cabin sized suitcase will be taken and placed in the hold at the boarding gate. So it would be important that anything they require during the flight such as passports, medication, reading glasses etc., should be put into the smaller handbag.
An article in your paper clarifying this for your readers would help especially the more senior travellers who may be uncertain and confused by Ryanair’s latest attempt at bleeding more money from them.
Noel Kelly (By email)
