Help Needed! Ryanair charged me to check in bag of duty free

jpsartre

If Ryanair had the policy then the airports should have taken into account that it might be enforced as well. I have Ryanair booking emails from 2008 that explicitly says that carry-on allowance is strictly one item and that they may refuse you boarding if you have more than one piece. The earliest mail I have where they explicitly mention that shop purchases must be carried as part of your carry-on allowance is from early 2009. So it's not like this is a new thing.

IMO, if the airports have tied themselves to 5 year deals without the possibility of renegotiation and without taking steps to ensure that Ryanair would generate the necessary income then they've made their bed. To be clear, I don't blame them for trying to exploit an old law and force Ryanair to accept duty free bags but unless they take steps to enforce it, all it's doing is catching passengers off guard who will then be forced to pay a fee.

NFH

stoneman wrote: »

You are really stuck if RA say you can't take it on, what are you going to do, there is no time to get out of line and find the airport managers.

Perhaps the airport could give passengers a hotline to call if an airline doesn't let them take their shopping on the aircraft. Airport staff could then attend the gate immediately and if necessary delay the flight until the airline complies. O'Leary hates his planes being delayed.

HelenaHandcart

All airlines have a one bag policy but differ in the interpretation. Most do not consider airport purchases to be 'cabin baggage'. For your emails it seems that in 2009 (i.e. three years ago as I said above), Ryanair changed its definition of 'carry-on allowance' to exclude airport purchases. I don't think, say four years ago, the airports could reasonably have forseen that Ryanair would take this stance.

By the way, Ryanair considers as part of the 'carry-on allowance' things that I (and I suspect most people) would not. For example I would not consider a newspaper; bottle of water; teddy bear; or a coat that is being carried rather than worn to be 'baggage' but Ryanair does.

jpsartre

NFH wrote: »

O'Leary hates his planes being delayed.

I doubt the 150 passengers or so on the plane will feel any differently.

NFH

HelenaHandcart wrote: »

All airlines have a one bag policy but differ in the interpretation.

Not true. I always take two items of cabin baggage on British Airways whose baggage policy explicitly allows this.

NFH

jpsartre wrote: »

I doubt the 150 passengers or so on the plane will feel any differently.

True but irrelevant. They're not the ones enforcing an unreasonable baggage policy and with the consequent authority to allow the plane to leave on time.

jpsartre

HelenaHandcart wrote: »

There is probably a fixed timescale for renegotating the fees (e.g. a five-year contract) so it may not be that easy.

By the way, unless you know otherwise I'd question that fees are fixed for such a long time period. In fact, my guess is that the airport can more or less increase their fees any time they want. That is why airlines reserve the right to charge passengers at a later stage in case of an increase before the flight takes place. As Ryanair say in their T&C:

"Taxes, fees and charges imposed on air travel are constantly changing and can be imposed after the date that your reservation has been made. If any such tax, fee or charge is introduced or increased after your reservation has been made you will be obliged to pay it (or any increase) prior to departure."

jpsartre

NFH wrote: »

They're not the ones enforcing an unreasonable baggage policy and with the consequent authority to allow the plane to leave on time.

If passengers find the baggage policy unreasonable they should book with another airline. Nobody is forced to use Ryanair and their baggage regulations are made very clear when you book.

NFH

jpsartre wrote: »

If passengers find the baggage policy unreasonable they should book with another airline. Nobody is forced to use Ryanair and their baggage regulations are made very clear when you book.

You've missed the point. In the scenario I described, it's the airport that finds Ryanair's baggage policy to be unreasonable and so it could delay the departure of the flight. The dispute is between the airport and the airline; the 150 passengers' views don't come into it.

jpsartre

I don't believe that holding a plane full of passengers hostage due to a silly dispute over carry-on allowances is the best way to go about solving this problem.