Has Ryanair adopted a stricter policy when it comes to carry-on bags over the last couple of weeks?
“Absolutely not,” the airline said. “Everything is the same as it ever was. You’re being ridiculous.”
“Well, if it is the same as it ever was, then why have I been hit with charges in the last few weeks when travelling with the same suitcase I have been using for donkey’s years and never had to pay for before?” say our readers.
We are paraphrasing both the airline and our readers here.
This is actually what they say. We’ll give the first word to our readers.
Starting with Catherine, who mailed us last week to ask if we were “aware of the recent changes to Ryanair’s baggage policy”.
She said she wasn’t aware of them at all, despite being a regular Ryanair traveller.
We have to confess that, like Catherine, we were entirely unaware of any changes, which is why what she had to say piqued our interest.
“I think [the changes] might only be a week old as I travelled last week and it didn’t appear to be in place,” she said in the mail.
“They have added a sticker to the side of the sizers which makes the sizers smaller as the bags need to be within the stickers rather than the iron sizer,” Catherine said.
“So, though my bag fits the sizers, it doesn’t fit the ‘new’ sizer because of this additional sticker.”
First of all, we must commend Catherine for using the word sizer – one we have never typed before now – so many times in a single sentence. But on with the story.
“The Ryanair bag sizer prominently says: `If it fits – it flies.’ Well, obviously not, as my bag fitted all right but an extra €75 was demanded to allow it to fly.”
She said that if there has been a change, “surely this is something Ryanair travellers should be made aware of. Nowhere on their website was this new bag policy communicated. Otherwise, I would have used a different suitcase.”
Now, that story would have been of interest had it been the only such tale we heard but it wasn’t.
Next up was Louise, who flew from Dublin to Birmingham with Ryanair on a Wednesday and flew back to Knock a few days later.
“On the outbound flight, my cabin bag was checked and accepted. On the return flight, I was charged a whopping £75 for the same bag, even though it fit in the sizer again,” she said.
“Apparently, it did not sit behind a new sticker,” she continued.
She urged people to beware if they have been using the same case for years. “You may wind up in the same situation as me,” she said, and warned people travelling with children or as part of groups as they could all end up being hit with the higher charge.
In hindsight, she said, if she had put the case upside down, it might have fit as the wheels were the issue. “Or, if I had tied my scarf around the case, it would have made it less wide. My case wasn’t even full.”
And, then, there was Chris. She was also stopped recently as the case which she has used when travelling with Ryanair for seven years was found to be too big and “over the new dimensions”.
She said: “If the dimensions are that strict, [Ryanair] should have an alert. It was a huge surprise as I have taken that case to Cheltenham for the past five years and obsess about the 10kg but never knew dimensions were a thing.”
We contacted the airline to highlight Catherine’s experience and asked about this change and whether or not modifications to its new planes might have been behind it, which Catherine said she had been told by a member of staff.
This is the response we received in full.
“As usual, you are misinformed.
“1. There has been no change to our agreed bag dimensions for many years.
“2. Our new Boeings have exactly the same baggage space as our existing fleet.
“3. New stickers have been fitted to the front and sides of our sizers to show the exact permitted dimensions of our two bag sizes (40 x 20 x 25cm) and (55 x 40 x 20cm). These stickers show that our permitted dimensions are smaller than our sizers. Our sizers are, therefore, bigger than our permitted/agreed bag sizes. Only bags that do not fit within our sizers (and so considerably exceed our agreed bag sizes) get charged for.
“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 within our sizers, it will be charged. There has been no change in this policy for many years, so ‘what you have been told’ is false.”
So, there you have it. Three readers – entirely independent of each other – contacted us to say they had been hit with charges in recent days because Ryanair had decided their carry-on bags were too big and, even though they fitted in the sizers, they had to pay a fairly hefty charge.
Ryanair said we are “as usual, misinformed”.
That is where we will leave it for now but if you have found yourself hit with a surprising baggage charge in recent days please feel free to get in touch.
