Ryanair will allow non-priority boarding passengers just one piece of hand luggage from November 1, after the low-cost airline said its two carry-on bag policy had proved too popular.
The airline is set to increase the usual check-in bag allowance from 15kg to 20kg – and cut the fee from €/£35 to €/25 in a move Ryanair said would cost it more than €50m in lost check-in charges.
From November 1, passengers will be able to check in their smaller “wheelie bag” at the boarding gate for free.
As part of its “Always Getting Better” programme, Ryanair said it wanted to encourage more passengers to check in their hand luggage to reduce the number arriving at the boarding gates with two bags. With passenger numbers having reached 97 per cent capacity over August, the airline said “there is not enough overhead cabin space for this volume of carry-on bags”.
The additional pieces of hand luggage were causing boarding and flight delays, Ryanair added. Only priority boarding passengers will be able to take on two pieces of carry-on luggage from November 1.
Kenny Jacobs, chief marketing officer at Ryanair, said: “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 (182 customers x two bags) carry-on bags.”
(Financial Times)
