Ryanair cuts it hand luggage allowance AGAIN - MSE News

SaveTheEuro

richardw wrote: »

This change will catch people out and they’ll be lots of heated discussions because the gate fee fine is €25 if your bag is oversized.

I'm sure you are right. Passengers are used to taking free hand luggage and this change will be a shock to the system.

The "Always Getting Better" programme is firmly in reverse gear. The check-in window has been reduced to just 2 days, couples and families are being separated on board and now priority borders will find anything up to 94 passengers ahead of them in the queue to board while other passengers will have to queue at check-in desks to deposit what had previously been called hand luggage, and pay for the privilege.

Ganga

MiraculousM wrote: »

I just added priority to a trip i have in November and its gone up to £7 for priority baggage- this is utterly ridiculous and probably the last time i will fly ryanair.

Is this the total price ? if it is you are making life hard for yourself by refusing to use a budget airline for £7.

wazza99

7pp per way.

MiraculousM

joncombe wrote: »

n, it sounds like they are reverting back to the sort of setup they had 15 years or so ago where hand luggage is free (but small) and suitcases must go in the hold (unless you pay extra).

But with this set up, the hold suitcase also came free with 30€ at the MOST fares and you weren't charged which is the major annoyance here.

Ganga wrote: »

Is this the total price ? if it is you are making life hard for yourself by refusing to use a budget airline for £7.

For one way, yes. I paid £45 for a single flight which was the cheapest at the time.

With the £7 on top i can fly with BA.

peterbaker

jpsartre wrote: »

Have you actually been on a Ryanair flight recently? The overhead lockers are more or less empty after they started gate checking the larger trolleys.

I have flown them continuously for 18 years. Last year about 50 legs thanks. What you say is unfortunately not accurate. On my last trip I had three bags (probably a total of 20kg) including a large strong paper carrier from the airport shops which I have just measured for you at 42cmx23cmx32cm. (interesting eh!).

I was a priority passenger (which means no-one takes a larger trolley off me at the gate or at the bottom of the steps!) and had to gently ask passengers around me - apologies but this blue leather rucksack - is it - yes Madam - do you mind if just move it aside and put it back on top of mine? And I was sitting close to the wing leading edge and even those bins were chocca (usually kept closed and informally reserved for those buying wing legroom seats at £15 each).

Then I had to turn and ask the same question again of those on the other side so I could squeeze in my second bag. My third bag was between my feet and semi under the aisle seat in front of me.

Your observation may relate to a one-off experience or a route where Ryanair have not yet managed to maximise load factors on a regular basis. Mine are mostly from a route that is 20 years old, but not exclusively so.

Oh Ganga, I appreciate if you aren't yet a seasoned traveller, and haven't fully investigated Ryanair, you might not understand the typical numbers sprinkled hereabouts, but no, £7 is not the total price of the flight ... it sometimes still can be for a lucky few canny bookers on some less busy routes, but Ryanair is expert at filling its aircraft - far more so than most of its competitors, and if they know in advance that they can fill it, they wont be selling too many cheap tickets on that one

No the £7 is what Ryanair call the (optional add-in) Priority Charge and for most of this year, that has meant that you can bring ALL THE WAY INTO THE CABIN a 10kg trolley bag, plus a smaller handbag that fits under a seat and plus an airport purchases bag which also is not supposed to be too big. Even non-priority passengers could bring the same bags but they'd have the trolley bag specially labelled at the gate and then taken off them by the loaders ahead of the aircraft steps and trasferred to the front hold. I think Ryanair almost never use the rear hold? Anyone know?

As of 1 November it seems, that last airport handling nicety function is abolished and trolley bags aren't allowed for non-priority customers. I expect Ryanair has knocked that "costly outsourced sub-function" on the head in order to find the extra for the pay deal it has apparently just settled with the striking pilots

jpsartre

peterbaker wrote: »

What you say is unfortunately not accurate.

Of course it's accurate. Even if the max number of people have purchased priority boarding you'll still have a lot fewer bags in the cabin than with other airlines. There may be many problems with Ryanair but the overhead lockers being stuffed certainly isn't one of them.

photome

jpsartre wrote: »

Of course it's accurate. Even if the max number of people have purchased priority boarding you'll still have a lot fewer bags in the cabin than with other airlines. There may be many problems with Ryanair but the overhead lockers being stuffed certainly isn't one of them.

Interesting debate going on here.


you say they arent and Peter says they are and justifies it by saying he flies with them a lot.


would like to know who is right I am flying with them next week for the first time in years

peterbaker

photome wrote: »

Interesting debate going on here.


you say they arent and Peter says they are and justifies it by saying he flies with them a lot.


would like to know who is right I am flying with them next week for the first time in years

What route are you flying? Is it a busy one/established one/cheap one/new one? What are the current (today's) prices for what you booked? That will give an insight into demand and therefore likely load factor on the day.

On the flight I described in my post, the load factor (according to the #1 cabin crew I usually quiz as part of my MO for blagging a wing seat for £0) was approximately 180/189 on a very long established route where Ryanair in its wisdom reduced flights some years back now from summertime 2 flights a day back to single flights (because they are that clever at manipulating demand and prices).

Back in the two flights a day days, this was a route where I could and did get 1p flights several times. Not now of course.

Ryanair makes its money by maximising load factors at a sufficient level of demand created (perhaps by once offering two flights a day and then dropping it to one flight for example) for it to be able to charge anything up to £200 per person per leg as a basic price for latecomers.

It is superbly efficient at this game.

I am not saying JPSartre reported his experience inaccurately, but I am saying that his experience is not the norm with Ryanair except on routes where they have not yet managed to control demand in their expert ways.

So as a generalisation, JPSartre's was inaccurate in my experience.

I have flown this year on Ryanair when there was unusually space in the bins. They can't micro control every flight every day, but they have a darned good try! And with 444 and still growing exact same 189 seat aircraft they are in a brilliant position to do it.

jpsartre

photome wrote: »

would like to know who is right I am flying with them next week for the first time in years

It's simply mathematics. Ryanair says approx. 30% pay for priority boarding (and I have no reason to distrust them on that number, it's a about what I would have expected, perhaps slightly higher) so even assuming every one of them brings on a large trolley, you will on average have less than 60 trolleys on a full flight. That's a lot less than other carriers will have.

TheShape

photome wrote: »

.would like to know who is right I am flying with them next week for the first time in years

jpsartre wrote: »

It's simply mathematics. Ryanair says approx. 30% pay for priority boarding (and I have no reason to distrust them on that number, it's a about what I would have expected, perhaps slightly higher) so even assuming every one of them brings on a large trolley, you will on average have less than 60 trolleys on a full flight. That's a lot less than other carriers will have.

Next week the overhead lockers will be a lot less full than they will be from November onwards. I imagine that from November most of the priority boarding tickets will sell as there's no financial advantage to letting your luggage go in the hold. If you can pay £6 to bring your luggage onboard rather than £10 to put it in the hold and have to wait to reclaim it at the destination then I imagine most will opt for priority boarding.