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Italy opens probe into Ryanair hand luggage charges

bbc.co.uk

21–30 of 63 posts

Re: Italy opens probe into Ryanair hand luggage charges

#21
Ryanair brought this on themselves. They charged for checked in bags and everyone rightly started bringing hand luggage only. Problem is that Ryanair didn't design their planes for everyone bringing large hand luggage and so they forced people to put them in the hold.

Airlines like Jet2 have designed their overhead bins with more hand luggage in mind. Jet2 bins fit 4 hang luggages vertically rather than the 2 horizontally that most Ryanair planes fit.

This isn't a problem of space it's a problem of design and not realising the consequences of your own actions.

Re: Italy opens probe into Ryanair hand luggage charges

#22
post #2

I sympathise with the consumer associations: charging for largish hand luggage makes price comparisons deceptive, distorting the market. On the other hand, storing hand luggage overhead is one of the most time consuming parts of the boarding process, which is even worse with Ryanair's short intereuropean flights. All that time spent on hand luggage costs money, and it seems only fair to make those pay that cause the…

> incentivizing people to take less luggage (bags that can be stored under your seat are still free) So how far and for how long do you think someone can fly with a luggage that fits under their seat? You can't honestly say you're selling a transportation service and let people take almost no luggage. If a fee is unavoidable, then it's not a fee, it's part of the price.

So how far and for how long do you think someone can fly with a luggage that fits under their seat?

Most business trips where you're away for at most one night. A long weekend city vacation is also easily doable with only that much luggage.

Re: Italy opens probe into Ryanair hand luggage charges

#23

Why not charging by passenger weight then?

I understand why this is being downvoted, and agree that it's not a nice point to try and argue - however it is somewhat irksome when I (as a recovering anorexic with a very small physical footprint) is penalised for a baggage weight allowance and yet there's no difference in seat cost between myself at 51kg and someone at twice that. Completely appreciate there's no fair way to police it (other than that, I think Sa…

Weight is largely irrelevant. The difference between a airliner full of 45Kg people versus 90Kg people constitutes about 5% of the total plane weight. Some fuel savings but would not be worth the aggravation, client humiliation, lawsuits etc.

What it boils down to is volume and time. A passenger takes up a seat regardless of how large he is (...) so he's charged for a seat. Luggage changes that equation far more than passenger body weight.

Re: Italy opens probe into Ryanair hand luggage charges

#24
post #10
post #2

I sympathise with the consumer associations: charging for largish hand luggage makes price comparisons deceptive, distorting the market. On the other hand, storing hand luggage overhead is one of the most time consuming parts of the boarding process, which is even worse with Ryanair's short intereuropean flights. All that time spent on hand luggage costs money, and it seems only fair to make those pay that cause the…

The only reason people store so much hand luggage is that the airlines charge for checked baggage. This wasn't always the case. > offer a discount if you show up without hand luggage Realistically, how many such people are there going to be who are travelling without a change of clothes? And if they win on this one, where's next on the slippery slope? Differential pricing for handbags and laptop bags? Could they mayb…

>Realistically, how many such people are there going to be who are travelling without a change of clothes?

A typical Ryanair customer would book a flight from Frankfurt to London for $20. It's not unusual to fly Ryanair to see a musical or a concert somewhere in Europe and fly back immediately after. Lots of potential to fly ultralight.

Re: Italy opens probe into Ryanair hand luggage charges

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how far and for how long do you think someone can fly with a luggage that fits under their seat? I can't speak for everyone (and are probably an exception, since even for a 3 week vacation my luggage never exceeds 15kg). But I can easily go for a very long weekend (up to a week) with the contents of a small duffle bag that easily fits under the seat. Which means a fresh t-shirt, underwear and socks for the entire…

I agree this is doable for a long weekend, but that's if you take only that and you have everything in one bag. Seems more of an edge case than the standard. Especially with limitation of liquids in handbags.

I don't think it's an edge case for Ryanair. They sell plenty of tickets below $30, making them attractive even for very short trips.

Re: Italy opens probe into Ryanair hand luggage charges

#27
post #8

Not sure how I feel about this. It annoyed my greatly on my last RyanAir flight that in order to take a slightly larger than laptop sized bag (35L) I had to pay for priority which was 8 quid or whatever. A Primera flight I've just booked is now doing exactly the same. Small bag free, bigger bag not so. But, as some of the comments here, I think it sped things up once on the plane. However, adding the extra charge lea…

Google flights already has an "access to the overhead bins" tick box, but yes, there is space to improve the comparison.

Re: Italy opens probe into Ryanair hand luggage charges

#28
post #19
post #2

I sympathise with the consumer associations: charging for largish hand luggage makes price comparisons deceptive, distorting the market. On the other hand, storing hand luggage overhead is one of the most time consuming parts of the boarding process, which is even worse with Ryanair's short intereuropean flights. All that time spent on hand luggage costs money, and it seems only fair to make those pay that cause the…

Isn’t this like McDonalds advertising the cheapest burger but only giving you an empty bun because the meat patty is the most time consuming part of the cooking process? There’s already too much misdirection in airline ticket sales, we need less not more.

If many people desire only the empty bun (gag me) then it's not so insane to show a price for that.

I was on a Ryanair flight last month from Malaga to Berlin; less than half (a lot less) had overhead luggage.

Re: Italy opens probe into Ryanair hand luggage charges

#29
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

use a different airline. The market is extremely competitive. Ryanair is the only airline to certain destinations no matter how much you are willing to pay. And they have form for manipulation. For a long time if you wanted to opt out of their insurance, you had to set that as your nationality...

> Ryanair is the only airline to certain destinations Surely it's not Ryanair's fault if others are not willing to compete for certain destinations.

Maybe, but you cannot say that the market is "extremely competitive" and "others are not willing to compete" at the same time.

Re: Italy opens probe into Ryanair hand luggage charges

#30
post #2

I sympathise with the consumer associations: charging for largish hand luggage makes price comparisons deceptive, distorting the market. On the other hand, storing hand luggage overhead is one of the most time consuming parts of the boarding process, which is even worse with Ryanair's short intereuropean flights. All that time spent on hand luggage costs money, and it seems only fair to make those pay that cause the…

> incentivizing people to take less luggage (bags that can be stored under your seat are still free) So how far and for how long do you think someone can fly with a luggage that fits under their seat? You can't honestly say you're selling a transportation service and let people take almost no luggage. If a fee is unavoidable, then it's not a fee, it's part of the price.

Are you familiar with Ryanair? Lots of people take it for overnight / weekend trips (or even same day). It's kinda their thing.
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