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 delay, incentivizing people to take less luggage (bags that can be stored under your seat are still free). It makes economic sense for everyone.
To satisfy both sides of the argument, you could show the price with large hand luggage fee included, and offer a discount if you show up without hand luggage. If you extend that concept, you arrive at a "base feature set" that has to be included in the base price of any flight, and from there you can add surcharges and discounts.
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.
This strongly suggests they had checked in luggage and simply didn't want to pay even more just to bring some in the cabin. A flight is not like a taxi ride, you're all but guaranteed you need luggage. So I think the cause-effect relationship works the other way. People don't bring hand luggage because they plan based on the cheap fare only to discover it doesn't include that.
The only reason prices are advertised as such is that they can initially stand out as being cheap. Many people will just go for it because it's hard to make an apples to apples comparison with an airline that gives you everything in a single package. Services that are now in a race to the bottom (airlines, mobile operators, etc.) are using these strategies more and more to differentiate themselves. But it's all done through misleading advertisement.
I didn't stalk people about it or anything. I myself actually paid for a bag in order to be able to carry-on my guitar, only to be told at the gate that I needed to gate check it (but with assurances that they'd be very careful, etc - although it's a carbon fiber guitar in a hard case, so I wasn't too worried).
So I got on the plane without a carry-on. Then I noticed... that most other people did too.
The luggage carousel in Berlin was pretty packed, but it's hard to really say how many people did or didn't check. I imagine Ryanair keeps tabs on these things fairly tightly, as its a crucial part of their model.
> On the other hand, storing hand luggage overhead is one of the most time consuming parts of the boarding process
Depends on how you define "boarding process". My experience is that it is insignificant if the boarding process starts at the point where the boarding gates open and ends when the plane starts taxiing for takeoff.
Exactly. If airlines wanted to, they could significantly optimize the process... Like ordering the passangers by seat number already in the terminal. Some larger airlines do that, but discount airlines prefer to make money by charging for "priority boarding"... and even that is retarded, they could simply charge more for upfront seats (I don't really see the benefit of boarding early, after all airplanes are likely less comfortable then terminals, but there is a benefit to exiting early).
Btw, as far as I know the reason for the long "everybody boarded but airplane not moving" wait times is that the flight is considered "departed" when they disconnect from the terminal, so they can be "on time" (another meaningless KPI) even if they don't actually take off an hour later.
> 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 delay, incentivizing people to take less luggage (bags that can be stored under your seat are still free). It makes economic sense for everyone.
Actually the main problem here was the airlines dis-incentivizing checked luggage, by introducing charges for it. Planes are designed to carry luggage in the hold, not the cabin, but if you charge to carry luggage in the hold, customers are going to try to bring as much as they can into the cabin.
> To satisfy both sides of the argument, you could show the price with large hand luggage fee included, and offer a discount if you show up without hand luggage. If you extend that concept, you arrive at a "base feature set" that has to be included in the base price of any flight, and from there you can add surcharges and discounts.
I agree. IMHO, there needs to be regulation standardizing what's included in a ticket for advertising purposes. Now every airline has their own unique way of nickle and diming you, and it so time consuming and troublesome to figure out whats the best deal for traveling from A to B in a reasonable fashion. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out what the most common features that a typical travelers uses.
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 maybe start charging based on the contents of the bags?
A lot of everhead luggage space issues are caused by the ubiquitous roll-aboards that so many business travelers in particular use. And business travelers typically don’t pay for checked luggage either because it’s free because of their airline status or because they expense it. They just don’t want to wait for luggage or deal with the hassle of delayed luggage.
I almost never check luggage. (I also use soft bags without wheels for carryon.) But I get 2 checked bags for free on my primary airline.
The only reason people store so much hand luggage is that the airlines charge for checked baggage
I try to fly with only hand luggage even when checking in luggage is free since it makes the the check in process slightly faster, saves me having to spend half an hour waiting for my luggage at the other end, means I have my luggage if my connecting flight gets re-routed or cancelled and makes it much more unlikely that my luggage gets lost along the way.
>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.
> The only reason people store so much hand luggage is that the airlines charge for checked baggage.
I don't think this is true. Frequent flyers always tell me the purpose of a large carry-on is so you don't waste time at the baggage reclaim at the destination. This makes sense to me because that can often be 30+ minutes.
I assume those people either fly to and back in the same day, have an already established "base" with clothes & cosmetics on the other end, or just buy everything at their destination. Personally, even for business trips longer than 2-3 days I end up having to use checked luggage.
I'm leaving today for a 4-day trip with just a backpack (I'm a guy without contact lenses or other medical issues so I need minimal cosmetics) (admittedly I'm taking a bit of a risk by trusting the weather forecast).
A few years ago I went for 10-day trip to Cuba (i.e. you can't really buy stuff there) with a 40L backpack.
To my way of thinking you’re taking too much stuff. I once carried more because I needed suits and the like. These days I’ll go in a 3 week trip with just carry-on.
Might be because on the flights I took, trying to stuff all my electronics (a laptop, a Kindle, power cables) and clothes&cosmetics for 3+ days in the same bag would make me exceed either weight or size limit of hand luggage.
The simple and most reasonable way to differentiate is that anything stored under the seat in front of you is free. Anything that goes into the overhead locker you have to pay for (but still cheaper than checking in luggage)
I’d occasionally fly Dublin to London for one night (even once or twice over and back in a day, but I try to avoid that because it’s awful). I’d only take a bag that fits under the seat.
You aren't going without any luggage, but just what you can fit behind the seat in front - and you can fit multiple change of clothes there, I assure you.
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 time. It includes toileteries, something to read and a medium sized camera.
In my experience people usually pack far too much.
The biggest promotion on https://www.ryanair.com/ as I see it is "Two-night stays in Europe from €88" — weekend trips are a big part of Ryanair's business.
A toothpaste tube, deodourant and a mini shaving foam fit easily in the 1L limit.
Liquids really don’t need to be a big issue. All my toiletries are in a 1 qt. Ziplock even for 2 or 3 week trips. I know some people carry a lot more than that but it’s often not needed.
>So how far and for how long do you think someone can fly with a luggage that fits under their seat?
In any 1 week vacation to any destination around the world? People are diverse and you shouldn't presume everything about yourself applies to everybody else. I've been on dozens such vacations.
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.
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 leaves a bitter taste in my mouth - "here's the price for you cheap flight, but here's the actual 20% more price now you have to add a bag".
It'll be a smooth win for the first aggregator (Skyscanner or whoever) that adds a 'taking max size cabin bag' option to their search and includes it in the price.
I'd say this is an open problem in the metasearch space right now. Airlines are increasingly splitting out what you do and don't get with your ticket into different fare classes, which they brand and line item themselves, making it difficult for a typical traveler to make heads or tails of whether they do or do not get a cabin bag or complimentary meal, etc.
I travel quite often in Europe and took a fairly amount of Ryanair flights as well. The amount of people rushing in to the plane and messing around when it's time to put their stuff in the overhead lockers is incredible, even as fellow passenger this is super annoying hence I don't blame Ryanair at all.
Also, even if you have to pay for the luggage, Ryanair still comes often cheaper than traditional airlines. If you want all the perks you can just fly Alitalia and you're set.
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 Samoan airline, who charged based on the person/bag weight combination), but I think it's indicative of it all being a bit of a sham. Of course weight increases costs of flying, but is an extra 1kg in a checked bag really worse than carrying 20/30kg more of fat or muscle?
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.
> A passenger takes up a seat regardless of how large he is
I'm only halfway joking when I say I've lost many an elbow into the side of someone substantially larger than I. For some "a seat" is "their seat + several inches of mine".
I know it's not really the problem at hand, but it's poor proxy for volume, and again, just shows that the weight fee is just a sham.
Just going to start manufacturing a "flight jacket" with pockets for all your luggage...
Baggage pricing isn't really about cost, it's a means of (a) taking the cost out of the list price, like ebay when posting prices weren't included; and (b) doing price discrimination against customers.
I took a fairly short Ryanair flight recently, and it was much nicer with these new baggage rules.
No-one was rushing to board first, in order to fit their sized-to-the-limit suitcase into an overhead locker. There was plenty of room left for handbags, small backpacks and so on, so those (like me) who'd paid for checked luggage didn't have to have their small bag around their feet. Boarding was noticeably faster.
Firstly, travelers are consenting adults that should understand and accept the baggage policy - or use a different airline. The market is extremely competitive.
Secondly, as a person who has traveled backpack for years, I find the whole "luggage is an essential element of air transport" line quite offensive. It's a service I want to purchase but you won't let me because some guy might be confused by a price comparison app to buy a baggage-less ticket (mind you, not even by Ryanair themselves, on their website it is very clear what you get for the price). It's revolting.
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...
I'm not the one who said the market is "extremely competitive". For sure is a market with high barriers to entry, very expensive to be in and profit margins are not that high either.
So if you are Ryanair you aim at doing more destinations and paid "extras", if you are Alitalia you aim at doing fewer destinations on a much bigger price mark.
Really? Where? I don’t doubt there are one or two, but most of their routes seem to be similar to the national carriers (though often to a different airport).
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 delay, incentivizing people to take less luggage (bags that can be stored under your seat are still free). It makes economic sense for everyone.
To satisfy both sides of the argument, you could show the price with large hand luggage fee included, and offer a discount if you show up without hand luggage. If you extend that concept, you arrive at a "base feature set" that has to be included in the base price of any flight, and from there you can add surcharges and discounts.