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Spain fines budget airlines €150M over 'abusive' cabin bag and seat charges

theguardian.com

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Re: Spain fines budget airlines €150M over 'abusive' cabin bag and seat charges

#51

Post by throwaway22032 »

madjam002 wrote: post #39

I've flown a lot with Ryanair, Easyjet and Wizz Air, and apart from Wizz Air adding mysterious a "System surcharge" if you use an ad blocker (although I think they've stopped doing this), I don't mind the extra charges at all. Surely if they ban cabin bag and seat charges, then the base fare is just going to go up for everyone? Memes and jokes aside, I actually find Ryanair to be a better service a lot of the time co…

I don't mind the extra charges but I question whether removing the fines associated with them would result in an increase in base fare.

If they just universally enforced that all oversize bags paid the £15 or whatever priority fee, instead of some people just getting unlucky because they didn't bring a tape measure on holiday and are 3cm over, I think it could even be net positive revenue wise.

Re: Spain fines budget airlines €150M over 'abusive' cabin bag and seat charges

#52

Post by nickjj »

marcinzm wrote: post #5
kyriakos wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about carry on bag not checked in luggage though.

It still costs fuel to carry the weight and slows down the boarding/un-boarding process. Especially if overhead bins fill up and bags need to be, chaotically, checked in at the gate since then you also need more gate attendants. Some passengers don't need anything more than the personal under seat bag for their trip. So charging for carry on bags is a logical approach if you wish to minimize the operating costs of th…

> It still costs fuel to carry the weight and slows down the boarding/un-boarding process.

This is true but if we want to play the pure fairness game should someone who is 150 pounds pay less than someone who is 200 pounds? What about a 90 pound kid? These are drastic differences in weight and all 3 humans would likely fit in the dimensions of 1 standard economy seat.

Arbitrarily charging upwards of $200 USD to check a bag at the gate because your carry on personal item was 0.5 pounds too heavy doesn't seem reasonable. A lot of consumer grade scales aren't even accurate to half a pound, you may have done the work to measure it and be wrong because you don't have a high precision scale that's as accurate as the industrial scale at the airport.

Re: Spain fines budget airlines €150M over 'abusive' cabin bag and seat charges

#53

Post by nickjj »

pzmarzly wrote: post #14
lxgr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20€ seems almost reasonable – I think I’ve seen Ryanair charge far more than 100 at some point.

I was caught by this surprise pricing once, so I'll explain: printing a boarding pass at the airport is €20, but that's only if you have checked in online beforehand. But checking in in-person is €0 only if there's more than 2 hours left until the planned departure, it is €55 if there is less. So in practice, a lot of people end up paying €75 for something that's free when flying with other airlines. In Ryanair's def…

Is printing it necessary btw?

I ask because RyanAir has official documentation at https://help.ryanair.com/hc/en-us/articles/12889667116433-Wh... and https://help.ryanair.com/hc/en-us/sections/12488861427857-Bo....

The way I parse them is if you're flying anywhere, unless it's from Morocco or specific airports listed in their FAQ then you don't need to physically print your boarding pass as long as you can pull it up on your phone. This would include foreign travelers such as someone from the US who is flying between countries in the EU based on there not being an explicit call out for that.

Re: Spain fines budget airlines €150M over 'abusive' cabin bag and seat charges

#54

Post by marcinzm »

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #47
marcinzm wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It still costs fuel to carry the weight and slows down the boarding/un-boarding process. Especially if overhead bins fill up and bags need to be, chaotically, checked in at the gate since then you also need more gate attendants. Some passengers don't need anything more than the personal under seat bag for their trip. So charging for carry on bags is a logical approach if you wish to minimize the operating costs of th…

My understand of the 1960's Spanish law which applies here is that the volume of luggage that is accepted as carry-on is fixed by the aircraft manufacturer (e.g. size of the overhead bins), and not the airline: the airline cannot arbitrarily decide the max volume of carry-on that passengers are allowed to bring (and worse, cannot selectively enforce a different limit for different passengers). I can clearly see the s…

In my experience the overhead bins are never large enough to accommodate everyone having the allowed sized carry on luggage. Which leads to bags getting gate checked fairly often.

Re: Spain fines budget airlines €150M over 'abusive' cabin bag and seat charges

#55

Post by oliwarner »

Xenoamorphous wrote: post #7
TacticalCoder wrote: post #4

Spain could also look into fining all these scammy car rental agencies that operate at or near airport. They are totally abusive and should be not just fined but fined to death. It's these kind of things, as in TFA, that makes life miserable for tourists.

I’m curious, how are those scammy? I always rent the car in advance and never had any issue, I’ve done that in Spain several times but only in the islands (Canary and Balearic).

They're thieves, hiding behind walls of small print.

We booked one in France through Avis. Rocked up and they wanted either a €2000 refundable deposit or a €350 non-refundable waiver. We were deep into a home renovation, couldn't afford the refundable option if we also wanted food on holiday, had to take the hit.

That's over the top of a €950 10 day rental for a 3 year old Seat, its gearbox nearing the end of its short cruel life.

And we were treated like this because we'd used a reseller. The person before us didn't have our experience and the guy there was happy enough to explain how they hide details like this from comparison websites and everyone assumes they'll get the standard rental agreement. Loads of people get stung on the waiver.

Re: Spain fines budget airlines €150M over 'abusive' cabin bag and seat charges

#56

Post by lxgr »

nickjj wrote: post #53
pzmarzly wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was caught by this surprise pricing once, so I'll explain: printing a boarding pass at the airport is €20, but that's only if you have checked in online beforehand. But checking in in-person is €0 only if there's more than 2 hours left until the planned departure, it is €55 if there is less. So in practice, a lot of people end up paying €75 for something that's free when flying with other airlines. In Ryanair's def…

Is printing it necessary btw? I ask because RyanAir has official documentation at https://help.ryanair.com/hc/en-us/articles/12889667116433-Wh... and https://help.ryanair.com/hc/en-us/sections/12488861427857-Bo... . The way I parse them is if you're flying anywhere, unless it's from Morocco or specific airports listed in their FAQ then you don't need to physically print your boarding pass as long as you can pull it u…

If you buy from certain resellers, these won't share the necessary login details with you to load the boarding pass into the official app.

Ryanair's app (unlike other airlines') intentionally does not allow loading a boarding pass/reservation using just your name and reservation code to discourage these third-party resellers – at the expense of their customers.

Re: Spain fines budget airlines €150M over 'abusive' cabin bag and seat charges

#57

Post by drukenemo »

oliwarner wrote: post #55
Xenoamorphous wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m curious, how are those scammy? I always rent the car in advance and never had any issue, I’ve done that in Spain several times but only in the islands (Canary and Balearic).

They're thieves, hiding behind walls of small print. We booked one in France through Avis. Rocked up and they wanted either a €2000 refundable deposit or a €350 non-refundable waiver. We were deep into a home renovation, couldn't afford the refundable option if we also wanted food on holiday, had to take the hit. That's over the top of a €950 10 day rental for a 3 year old Seat, its gearbox nearing the end of its sho…

This is almost to the letter what happened to me in Spain. What you described is real.

Re: Spain fines budget airlines €150M over 'abusive' cabin bag and seat charges

#58

Post by fy20 »

oliwarner wrote: post #55
Xenoamorphous wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m curious, how are those scammy? I always rent the car in advance and never had any issue, I’ve done that in Spain several times but only in the islands (Canary and Balearic).

They're thieves, hiding behind walls of small print. We booked one in France through Avis. Rocked up and they wanted either a €2000 refundable deposit or a €350 non-refundable waiver. We were deep into a home renovation, couldn't afford the refundable option if we also wanted food on holiday, had to take the hit. That's over the top of a €950 10 day rental for a 3 year old Seat, its gearbox nearing the end of its sho…

A deposit for car rental is normal. If you provide a credit card they reserve the amount without actually charging you. But if you only have a debit card or your credit limit is too low, they cannot do that. So you have to pay upfront, and they will refund you after the rental.

I'm guessing the 'waiver' is for their enhanced insurance, which means you don't pay anything extra if there are any damages.

I've rented hundreds of cars in Europe over the past two decades, and never had an issue. I booked through whatever site is the cheapest (which often is their own site, once you sign up for the loyalty programme). Never took the extras they try to sell. Car seats are carried by airlines for free (even Ryanair), so you don't need to pay for those.

Re: Spain fines budget airlines €150M over 'abusive' cabin bag and seat charges

#59

Post by anonzzzies »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #4

Spain could also look into fining all these scammy car rental agencies that operate at or near airport. They are totally abusive and should be not just fined but fined to death. It's these kind of things, as in TFA, that makes life miserable for tourists.

We have had some bad issues with them with people coming to visit us so now we just take them to a rental outside the airport (there are enough very close by). Solves the problem. Get a taxi or Uber there and done.

But agreed; should be (probably is) illegal.

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