Ryanair has been in a lot of trouble lately, primarily due to their labor issues, which have caused tons of flight delays and cancelations. While I haven’t yet flown Ryanair, James has written about why he doesn’t mind flying with them, assuming you come into the experience with the right expectations.
Ryanair had made changes to their baggage policy as of November 1, 2017, and now they’re making changes to their policy again, which kick in as of November 1, 2018. This sure will create a lot of confusion, given that they’re totally overhauling their baggage policies twice within a year.
Ryanair has announced the following changes to their baggage policy for tickets booked as of September 1, 2018, and for travel as of November 1, 2018:
- Ryanair is introducing a new lower checked bag fee option; previously the lowest cost to check a bag was €/£25 for a 20kg suitcase, while now there will be an option to pay €/£8 for a 10kg suitcase
- Priority customers will continue to be able to bring in two free carry-on bags (a 10kg wheelie plus a small bag), while non-priority customers will be limited to bringing on a small bag (previously they could bring a 10kg wheelie to the gate, but it would be gate checked for free)
Ryanair claims that 60% of passengers will be unaffected. Their logic is that 30% of customers already buy priority boarding, and 30% already only travel with one small carry-on bag (which I’m skeptical of).
Ryanair says that the remaining 40% of non-priority customers will either switch to priority boarding, will switch to traveling with just one free small carry-on bag, or will use the new lower fee checked bag option.
Having other passengers switch to priority boarding of course reminds me of this “Come Fly With Me” skit:
The funny thing here is that most people shouldn’t pay the €/£8 to check a 10kg suitcase. Instead you can purchase priority boarding for just €/£6 at the time of booking, and then you can continue to carry-on a bag of the same dimensions. So the only person who would be paying for that is someone who really doesn’t want to carry-on a bag, or who wants to check a second bag of those dimensions.
What’s also puzzling is that Ryanair says that they’re making these changes to minimize delays and speed up boarding. They made changes to their policy last year with the exact same stated purpose, except their changes actually caused delays.
Under their system for the past year all non-priority passengers could bring a full size carry-on, but it would simply be checked at the gate at no cost. How that was supposed to speed things up is beyond me.
Bottom line
Ryanair is making changes to their baggage policy for the second time in a year. These are no doubt negative changes. Non-priority customers are going from getting a free full-size gate checked bag, to having to pay an extra €/£6 for priority boarding, or an extra €/£8 to check a 10kg suitcase.
What do you make of Ryanair’s baggage policy changes?
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