Ryanair stands firm on baggage allowance

World Duty Free (WDF) has expressed its concern after low-cost carrier Ryanair revealed its intention to clamp down on passengers trying to board its flights with more than one piece of hand luggage. Any passenger who attempts to board with more than one piece of hand luggage will be fined €/£30 at the departure gate and have their bag placed in the aircraft's hold. The move is in response to a growing number of passengers carrying more than one piece of hand baggage and the fine was established after one passenger attempted to carry five items of hand luggage onboard an aircraft.

WDF, Alpha Retail and Aldeasa business relations and external affairs director Sarah Branquinho is concerned at the impact this can have on sales. She told delegates at the European Travel Retail Council (ETRC) Business Forum in Brussels: “We had some problems in Stansted a couple of weeks ago where we had customers returning to the store and asking for refunds because they could not put their purchases from our store into their hand luggage. The passengers were forced to pay €/£30 to take them on board, which did not make our products seem reasonably priced at all. We have also had problems with some airlines in other airports, but the issues mainly lie with Ryanair.”

Branquinho told delegates that the new measure has not yet been fully in place, however. “When an airport landlord goes to talk to the airline about this the airline seems to back off so we are not seeing anything that has been implemented in full.”

The retailer has already begun assessing the long-term implications if the new measure is fully introduced, according to Branquinho. “We have begun doing calculations on what we stand to lose and whatever way we look at it the loss in sales will be tremendous. We are not just concerned at the impact this will have on sales in our main stores but we are also worried about the affect this will have in our specialist shops. In some cases 90% of our retail income at a particular airport can come from low-cost airlines or a single low-cost carrier so the problem is absolutely huge. We will be writing to all airport landlords at the end of week to discuss the problem and ask them to take it up with the various airports.”

Industry lobbyist John Hume of Hume Brophy Communications, who has discussed the issue with Ryanair representatives, fears other airlines could soon follow suit. “As far as Ryanair are concerned this policy will be rolled out over the coming weeks throughout the entire Ryanair channel. Whatever passengers buy airside must be stored in just one bag. This is a commercial decision to drive revenues for hold baggage. What Ryanair does today the others will surely follow soon. I have spoken to Easyjet at senior management and corporate levels and at the moment they are not planning anything of this sort, but the fact remains that Ryanair are and the level of enforcement will decimate sales.”

A statement on the Ryanair website said: “Ryanair's generous cabin baggage allowance permits passengers to carry one piece of cabin baggage of up to 10kg onto our aircraft. Due to the large increase in passengers abusing this allowance Ryanair will now charge passengers for each additional piece of luggage they carry. Passengers are made clearly aware of their cabin allowance at the time of their booking and it is also printed on their online boarding cards. Passengers who are unable to place items into one bag and refuse to make the additional payments will not be permitted to travel.”