Ryanair quietly increases charge to travel with your carry-on bag
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- 01 Jun 2021
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Ryanair has quietly increased the cost of guaranteeing your hand luggage with travel with you in the cabin.
The low-cost airline said in January that only passengers who pay £5 for priority boarding will be able to keep their holdall or carry-on suitcase with them during a flight - everyone else faces having their bag put in the hold (free of charge).
The policy amounted to a £10 charge per return flight for anyone who wants to fly with their carry-on bag - with an eligibility to join the priority queue seemingly of secondary importance.
But at some point this month the Irish carrier, without an announcement, increased the charge on the majority of its routes to £14 per return flight if paid during the online check-in process.
On the Ryanair website the fee was displayed as €5/£5 “online” and €6/£6 for “post booking/airport”, but added that “an increased charge is applicable for priority boaring [sic] on selected routes”.
Telegraph Travel conducted a spot-check and found the online fee for the majority of routes investigated, including Alicante, Hamburg, and Lisbon, was the higher €6/£6 rather than €5/£5. It would likely rise to €7/£7 at check-in.
However, a flight from Luton to Faro, for example, displayed a cheaper £5 priority boarding fee.
Ryanair has not revealed which other routes remain priced at £5.
A spokesperson said: “Like all businesses, our optional fees can change unlike our fares which keep coming down.
“Priority boarding, which allows customers to bring two pieces of hand luggage on board with them and board the plane first, costs €5/€6 (depending on the route) at the time of booking and €6/€7 (depending on the route) when added to a booking.”
Only last week CEO Michael O’Leary warned that the airline is considering changing its baggage policy for the second time this year after warning that the new rule is creating a “handling issue”.
The original rule change, introduced in January, was motivated by the airline’s belief that passengers were abusing their carry-on allowance by travelling with “the kitchen sink”.
To check a bag with Ryanair costs €25/£25 online, each way, or €40/£40 at the airport, with a €11/£11 per kilo excess fee. The airline reduced the fees in January, down from €35/£35 online, to, it said, "encourage more customers to check in bags and reduce the number of customers with two bags at the boarding gates".
