Ryanair passengers could see their luggage rejected at the boarding gate, even if they are willing to pay extra for it. The budget airline allows passengers on regular fares to bring one “personal bag” for free, as long as it meets a certain size restriction.
Ryanair passengers face getting into a spot of bother at the boarding gate thanks to one of the airline’s little-known rules.
The Irish airline’s passion for fining travellers whose bags are too big is now well known. Less widely circulated are rules about how much you can and can’t pay if you get caught with a non-compliant piece of luggage.
Ryanair has a no cash policy at the boarding gate. That means even if a passenger is prepared to pay the fee, if they only have physical money on them, they may be forced to leave the bag behind. This comes after the amount Ryanair pay boarding staff for catching oversized bags came to light.
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“Our bag policy is simple; if it fits in our bag sizer (which is bigger than our agreed dimensions) it gets on free of charge. If it doesn’t fit in our bag sizer, you pay a gate bag fee. As our boarding gates are cashless, gate bag fees cannot be paid in cash. These fees are paid by less than 0.1 per cent of passengers who don’t comply with our agreed bags rules,” a spokesperson for Ryanair said.
“For the 99.9 percent of our passengers who comply with our rules, we say thank you and keep flying, as you have nothing to worry about.”
The budget airline permits travellers on standard tickets to carry one “personal bag” free of charge, as long as it adheres to specific size limitations. This is a recent change in policy. Previously, the dimensions were 40x25x20cm, but these have been updated in line with changes to EU legislation. Now, Ryanair’s personal bag requirements are 40x30x20cm, and staff members can use bag measuring tools at every gate to check if passengers’ luggage exceeds this limit.
If your bag doesn’t fit into the sizer at the gate, you’ll be slapped with an additional fee to bring it on board, which could amount to £70 or 70 euros.
The most affordable Ryanair flights are the Basic Fares, which only permit a passenger to bring a personal item (which must fit under the seat) on board, as well as being allocated a random seat. Despite the ticket price being lower than other fares, it comes with numerous restrictions.
We’ve all read or heard tales about travellers getting stung with eye-watering fees because their personal items exceeded the size limit. Arguably, one of the most shocking happened to Mirror reporter Ruby Flanagan, who was charged £50 to take her water bottle onboard.
“On the 50 minute flight back to London, I realised that it would’ve been cheaper to throw the bottle away and buy a new one for £25 when I landed. Of course, that level of hindsight just made me feel stupid. But that would’ve been ridiculously un-environmental – and would’ve taken away from the satisfaction of being the over one-millionth plastic bottle of water saved from landfill by refilling mine. Shout out to Dublin Airport for informing me of that info,” she recalled.