Ryanair blames flight delays for changes to its two-cabin bag policy
Ryanair has cut its baggage fees to try to encourage more customers to check in bags and reduce the number taking two pieces of hand luggage.
The airline said it could no longer cope with the amount of luggage people were taking into the cabin since it began allowing passegners to travel with two free carry-on bags.
"With high load factors, there is not enough overhead cabin space for this volume of carry-on bags, which is causing boarding and flight delays," it said.
From November 1, only passengers who pay an additional £5 for priority service will be allowed to take two bags into the cabin; the rest will have their second, largest bag taken from them at the gate and put into the hold free of charge.
However, at the same time the airline is cutting its checked bag fee from £20 to £15 and increasing its baggage allowance from 15kg to 20kg to try to persuade more passengers to check in their bags.
Spokesman Kenny Jacobs said: "These bag policy changes will cost Ryanair over €50 million a year in reduced checked bag fees.
"However, we believe offering bigger bags at reduced fees will encourage more customers to consider checking-in a bag, which will reduce the high volume of customers we have with two carry-on bags at the boarding gates, which is causing flight delays due to large numbers of gate bag and cabin bag offloads.
"We hope that by restricting non-priority customers to one small carry-on bag – their wheelie bag must be placed in the hold, free of charge at the boarding gate – this will speed up the boarding of flights and eliminate flight delays being caused by not having sufficient overhead cabin space on busy flights to accommodate over 360 carry-on bags."
From November 1, Ryanair will have two boarding queues, one for priority customers who will be allowed two carry-on bags and one for standard customers who will have to give up their second bag to be placed in the hold.
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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