The joy of flying Ryanair

Yesterday I was boarding a Ryanair flight at Copenhagen Airport and there was an overzealous member of staff catching out people with oversized baggage. It was done quite cynically: she announced that priority boarders line up from one side and the remainder the other side.

This seemed unusual: the flight was not due to take off for nearly an hour and so it seemed strange that she was inviting everyone to stand in a queue for so long, as if boarding was about to commence, when it clearly wasn’t.

Of course, it is common for some very eager passengers to stand in line at the gate for ages (often brutally termed in the airline trade as ‘gate lice’) but seldom for nearly an hour before the boarding time.

The moment they dutifully had lined up she walked up to the first person in the queue and announced that her luggage was too big, asking her to put it in the dreaded Ryanair baggage measurement sizer. True, it was a couple of centimetres oversized, but the passenger could be forgiven for confusion: before 2018 Ryanair allowed passengers to bring two carry-on items for free, and since then many airlines have been changing permitted baggage sizes from time to time, meaning it’s difficult to keep track of the current rules.

Having loads of time to play with, this Ryanair employee proceeded to inspect and measure a host of luggage further up the line, dishing out further oversized baggage fees in the process.

This experience underlines that it is best to hold back from joining the queue, whether priority or non-priority, until staff have actually started the boarding process. This invariably triggers a scrum, and they will probably then be too busy to scrutinise luggage anything as carefully.

Anecdotally, Ryanair has really stepped up its bag-checking at airport gates this year. It is amongst the most restrictive airlines when it comes to complimentary cabin baggage, yet in November is also increasing the fee for a bag exceeding the permitted measurements, from €60 to €70 per item per flight.

It makes it even more important than ever to check out fares from several different carriers when booking tickets, and not just assume Ryanair will be the cheapest. Indeed, my earlier outward flight to Copenhagen was with British Airways, as when taking into account its more generous free luggage allowances, it ended up being the cheapest option on that occasion.

From 3 November Ryanair may also cause difficulties when it ceases then to accept printed boarding passes. Passengers will be required to have a digital boarding pass downloaded to a mobile device before arriving at the airport, which will be a challenge for those people without smartphones, not savvy with technology, or where the battery on their phone has died when they are at the airport.

Currently there are a number of airports, including all of Morocco’s airports, many in Turkey, and Tirana Airport in Albania, that don’t accept digital boarding passes, so it will be interesting to see what happens if such airports haven’t changed their boarding card policies by then.

In May Ryanair also introduced a €100 missed departure fee for passengers arriving late at the boarding gate. So not only will your missed flight have ruined your day, you’re going to have to pay a hefty fine too…

Further reading: Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary’s entertaining quotes in The Guardian and in The Telegraph