Ryanair bag policy: First day of passengers required to pay for guaranteed carry-on luggage

At 5am on any Monday morning at Stansted airport, charity is in short supply. But 15 January had the potential for extra stress, as Ryanair chose that date to impose a new cabin baggage policy.

Passengers on Europe’s biggest budget airline can continue to take two pieces of hand luggage through security and to the departure gate. But the larger case will be tagged at the departure gate and go into the hold.

At the destination it will be unloaded into the airport baggage system, so the traveller will need to wait for it to appear, hopefully intact, at the baggage carousel. The only exception: if the passenger has paid £5 extra for priority boarding.

Ryanair says it is making the move because planes have been delayed due to slow boarding. With a “load factor” of 96 per cent, all but seven or eight seats are occupied on the average flight.

For the past year Ryanair has warned passengers that some have been taking advantage of the two-bag policy. The move, it says, is to improve punctuality. In addition, some checked baggage charges have been reduced, and the maximum weight of each hold bag increased from 15kg to 20kg.

Ahead of the change, Ryanair has sent out millions of emails — which, for many travellers, appear to have caused confusion, with the wording suggesting the allowance has changed when it has not. Shehnaz Hansraj tweeted: “No mention of this strange rule when I booked with @Ryanair last week. I then got an email almost a week later ‘reminding’ me of this rule. Had I known no carry on luggage was allowed I would have booked with another airline.”

Reactions at Stansted airport, Ryanair’s busiest hub, were mixed.

Lorenza Bacino, a passenger to Pescara, said: “I got a bit confused about the new rules. I wasn’t sure if I needed to pay the priority, which I did. I suppose I’m a bit miffed but I’m not surprised because it’s Ryanair.”

But Christine Thomas had opted for priority boarding: “It’s only £5. The flight was cheap enough to start with. For the convenience of having it with me on board, getting off quickly at the other end, and walking straight through – I’m quite happy to pay the £5.”

Passengers at departure gates at Stansted said the process was working smoothly. Brian Salmon, flying to Perugia, reported from the plane: “No baggage wars, baggage handlers ready to receive all suitcases, boarding process considerably quicker once inside aircraft. Sensible move.”

Steve Strachan reported that passengers in the non-priority queue for his flight to Alicante had had their bags tagged well before departure. In addition, one passenger had tried to sneak their tagged bag on board the plane. “Didn’t work with the crew,” he said.

Mr Strachan said he was broadly supportive of the change in policy: “I’ve been on previous Alicante flights, the overhead luggage racks have been absolutely full to busting, this is perhaps their way of trying to reduce that problem.”

Ryanair’s chief marketing officer, Kenny Jacobs, told BBC 5 Live: “So far we’ve had lots of flights taking off today and we haven’t had any issues.”

Some passengers have expressed fears that valuables may go missing from bags that are placed in the hold. Rory Boland, editor of Which? Travel, said: “Ryanair needs to make sure customers understand that they may not be insured for loss, theft or damage of their valuables if their luggage ends up in the hold as a result of these new rules.

Other airlines are watching reactions to Ryanair’s new policy closely. British Airways and easyJet have generous cabin baggage allowances, but also encounter problems with inadequate storage space on full flights.