Ryanair Hold Baggage

jogary · 25 July 2011 at 12:56PM

Travelling to Spain this Summer with Ryanair and was planning to not give any extra cash to Mr O'Leary by taking hand luggage only.

However, as I've just got back into golf, thought I'd take a cheap half set of clubs out with me to leave at my house in Spain. Ryanair charge £40 one-way for sport equipment, but I'd still be in pocket given the price of golf clubs in Spain.

Hang on though, what's this - the box that my golf clubs came in is actually slightly smaller than the maximum dimensions for hold baggage as published on Ryanair's website - 81cms (height), 119cms (width) and 119cms (depth), and weighs less than 15kg, so if I just put this in the hold as normal baggage then I only have to pay £20 :money:!!

Obviously I don't want to turn up at the airport and Ryanair refuse this as normal baggage, so is there any reason why they may do this? I've looked at their terms and conditions and none of the following statements seem to apply, but then I'm a reasonable person and I know that being reasonable often doesn't apply to some employees of Mr. O'Leary!

8.3 ITEMS UNACCEPTABLE AS BAGGAGE
8.3.1 You must not include in your Baggage:
8.3.1.1 items which are likely to endanger the aircraft or persons or property on board the aircraft, as more particularly set out in Article 8.10 below;
8.3.1.2 items the carriage of which is prohibited by the applicable laws, regulations or orders of any state to be flown from or to;
8.3.1.3 items which are reasonably considered by us to be unsuitable for carriage because they are dangerous, unsafe or by reason of their weight, size, shape or character, or which are fragile or perishable having regard to, among other things, the type of aircraft being used;

The box in question would be approx. 117cm x 30 x 30.

I've seen plenty of boxes appearing on the baggage carousels at airports before, but I wanted to find out the views of other Moneysaving Experts before deciding.

richardw · 25 July 2011 at 1:12PM

More about Sports Equipment http://www.ryanair.com/en/questions/can-i-bring-my-sports-equipment-or-bike

jogary · 25 July 2011 at 1:16PM

Calling them was my next port of call; just wanted to see if anyone else had any experience of this before paying £10/min to ring their Customer 'Service' dept.

In my experience it is Ryanair employees on the check-in desks, not airport staff - at least at EMA anyway.

antenna · 25 July 2011 at 1:28PM

If you are only taking hold luggage one way then you will need to book your return flight seperatley as you cant book luggage one way on a return booking.......this was news to me last week!

jogary · 25 July 2011 at 1:44PM

Luckily I have seperate bookings for outward/inward flights so only have one-way fees to pay.

The sports equipment description given on their website is all well and good, but nowhere does it say that sports equipment has to be booked as such and the appropriate fees paid (unless it's over the normal bagge size). I just want to take the cheapest option, and that is putting a box in the hold that just happens to be sports equipment.

richardw · 25 July 2011 at 1:50PM

from http://www.ryanair.com/en/terms-and-conditions

"8.2 EXCESS BAGGAGE AND CARRIAGE OF CERTAIN ITEMS

You will be required to pay a charge for the carriage of Checked Baggage in excess of your personal Checked Baggage allowance and for any sports equipment..."

which could be read as

"You will be required to pay a charge for the carriage of ......... any sports equipment"

or may mean

"You will be required to pay a charge for the carriage of sports equipment in excess of your personal Checked Baggage allowance"

Falafely · 25 July 2011 at 2:09PM

I thought I could get away with taking my saxophone as hand luggage, but I ended up having to pay 40 quid. Think it's something to do with insurance :-S

laurel7172 · 25 July 2011 at 2:23PM

I booked return flights-then decided I needed a bag on the way back, and I added it with no problem. So it's probably better to book your return flights at the price on screen and then go in and change the booking later, iyswim.

NJW69 · 25 July 2011 at 2:24PM

Can you not wrap them so you can't tell what they are?

Hobsons_Choice · 26 July 2011 at 9:05PM

Probably irrelevant, but just to remind you that if you're flying from EMA, you can buy a good size carrier bag from WH Smith and use it on Ryanair in addition to your cabin luggage.

budgetflyer · 27 July 2011 at 12:13AM

Hobsons_Choice wrote: »

Probably irrelevant, but just to remind you that if you're flying from EMA, you can buy a good size carrier bag from WH Smith and use it on Ryanair in addition to your cabin luggage.

Not according to Ryanair T&Cs you can't.

All items including any airside shopping have to fit within your hand luggage.

Whether they enforce it at EMA is another matter, but they are very strict at a lot of other UK and foreign airports

Ryanair Hold Baggage

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