Italy opens probe into Ryanair hand luggage charges | Hacker News Reader

Italy opens probe into Ryanair hand luggage charges

bbc.co.uk

34 pointsal_ramich61 comments

I sympathise with the consumer associations: charging for largish hand luggage makes price comparisons deceptive, distorting the market.

On the other hand, storing hand luggage overhead is one of the most time consuming parts of the boarding process, which is even worse with Ryanair's short intereuropean flights. All that time spent on hand luggage costs money, and it seems only fair to make those pay that cause the delay, incentivizing people to take less luggage (bags that can be stored under your seat are still free). It makes economic sense for everyone.

To satisfy both sides of the argument, you could show the price with large hand luggage fee included, and offer a discount if you show up without hand luggage. If you extend that concept, you arrive at a "base feature set" that has to be included in the base price of any flight, and from there you can add surcharges and discounts.

> incentivizing people to take less luggage (bags that can be stored under your seat are still free)

So how far and for how long do you think someone can fly with a luggage that fits under their seat?

You can't honestly say you're selling a transportation service and let people take almost no luggage.

If a fee is unavoidable, then it's not a fee, it's part of the price.

>So how far and for how long do you think someone can fly with a luggage that fits under their seat?

In any 1 week vacation to any destination around the world? People are diverse and you shouldn't presume everything about yourself applies to everybody else. I've been on dozens such vacations.

So how far and for how long do you think someone can fly with a luggage that fits under their seat?

I can't speak for everyone (and are probably an exception, since even for a 3 week vacation my luggage never exceeds 15kg). But I can easily go for a very long weekend (up to a week) with the contents of a small duffle bag that easily fits under the seat.

Which means a fresh t-shirt, underwear and socks for the entire time. It includes toileteries, something to read and a medium sized camera.

In my experience people usually pack far too much.

I agree this is doable for a long weekend, but that's if you take only that and you have everything in one bag.

Seems more of an edge case than the standard. Especially with limitation of liquids in handbags.

I don't think it's an edge case for Ryanair. They sell plenty of tickets below $30, making them attractive even for very short trips.

Liquids really don’t need to be a big issue. All my toiletries are in a 1 qt. Ziplock even for 2 or 3 week trips. I know some people carry a lot more than that but it’s often not needed.

The biggest promotion on https://www.ryanair.com/ as I see it is "Two-night stays in Europe from €88" — weekend trips are a big part of Ryanair's business.

A toothpaste tube, deodourant and a mini shaving foam fit easily in the 1L limit.

So how far and for how long do you think someone can fly with a luggage that fits under their seat?

Most business trips where you're away for at most one night. A long weekend city vacation is also easily doable with only that much luggage.

Are you familiar with Ryanair? Lots of people take it for overnight / weekend trips (or even same day). It's kinda their thing.

A lot of Ryanair’s business is weekend trips and lower budget business travel. These aren’t long-haul flights.

Around half my flying is with that kind of luggage, more if I look at the kind of travel I'd consider Ryanair for.

The only reason people store so much hand luggage is that the airlines charge for checked baggage. This wasn't always the case.

> offer a discount if you show up without hand luggage

Realistically, how many such people are there going to be who are travelling without a change of clothes?

And if they win on this one, where's next on the slippery slope? Differential pricing for handbags and laptop bags? Could they maybe start charging based on the contents of the bags?

You aren't going without any luggage, but just what you can fit behind the seat in front - and you can fit multiple change of clothes there, I assure you.

Some of us have pants the size of boat covers.

The simple and most reasonable way to differentiate is that anything stored under the seat in front of you is free. Anything that goes into the overhead locker you have to pay for (but still cheaper than checking in luggage)

>Realistically, how many such people are there going to be who are travelling without a change of clothes?

A typical Ryanair customer would book a flight from Frankfurt to London for $20. It's not unusual to fly Ryanair to see a musical or a concert somewhere in Europe and fly back immediately after. Lots of potential to fly ultralight.

> The only reason people store so much hand luggage is that the airlines charge for checked baggage.

I don't think this is true. Frequent flyers always tell me the purpose of a large carry-on is so you don't waste time at the baggage reclaim at the destination. This makes sense to me because that can often be 30+ minutes.

I assume those people either fly to and back in the same day, have an already established "base" with clothes & cosmetics on the other end, or just buy everything at their destination. Personally, even for business trips longer than 2-3 days I end up having to use checked luggage.

To my way of thinking you’re taking too much stuff. I once carried more because I needed suits and the like. These days I’ll go in a 3 week trip with just carry-on.

Might be because on the flights I took, trying to stuff all my electronics (a laptop, a Kindle, power cables) and clothes&cosmetics for 3+ days in the same bag would make me exceed either weight or size limit of hand luggage.

I'm leaving today for a 4-day trip with just a backpack (I'm a guy without contact lenses or other medical issues so I need minimal cosmetics) (admittedly I'm taking a bit of a risk by trusting the weather forecast).

A few years ago I went for 10-day trip to Cuba (i.e. you can't really buy stuff there) with a 40L backpack.

> A few years ago I went for 10-day trip to Cuba (i.e. you can't really buy stuff there) with a 40L backpack.

Nice. But how did that fit in the usual size & weight limits of hand luggage? Or did you fly with a decent airline instead of a cheap one?

A ~40L travel backpack like [1] is legal carryon (and is probably actually a bit more adaptable for overhead space than a typical rollaboard) along with a small laptop bag or other "personal item." It's what I mostly use to travel all over the world for weeks at a time. This is on a regular airline--typically United. I get free checked luggage but rarely take advantage.

[1] https://www.osprey.com/us/en/product/porter-46-PORTER46.html

I’d occasionally fly Dublin to London for one night (even once or twice over and back in a day, but I try to avoid that because it’s awful). I’d only take a bag that fits under the seat.

The only reason people store so much hand luggage is that the airlines charge for checked baggage

I try to fly with only hand luggage even when checking in luggage is free since it makes the the check in process slightly faster, saves me having to spend half an hour waiting for my luggage at the other end, means I have my luggage if my connecting flight gets re-routed or cancelled and makes it much more unlikely that my luggage gets lost along the way.

No.

A lot of everhead luggage space issues are caused by the ubiquitous roll-aboards that so many business travelers in particular use. And business travelers typically don’t pay for checked luggage either because it’s free because of their airline status or because they expense it. They just don’t want to wait for luggage or deal with the hassle of delayed luggage.

I almost never check luggage. (I also use soft bags without wheels for carryon.) But I get 2 checked bags for free on my primary airline.

> On the other hand, storing hand luggage overhead is one of the most time consuming parts of the boarding process

Depends on how you define "boarding process". My experience is that it is insignificant if the boarding process starts at the point where the boarding gates open and ends when the plane starts taxiing for takeoff.

Exactly. If airlines wanted to, they could significantly optimize the process... Like ordering the passangers by seat number already in the terminal. Some larger airlines do that, but discount airlines prefer to make money by charging for "priority boarding"... and even that is retarded, they could simply charge more for upfront seats (I don't really see the benefit of boarding early, after all airplanes are likely less comfortable then terminals, but there is a benefit to exiting early).

Btw, as far as I know the reason for the long "everybody boarded but airplane not moving" wait times is that the flight is considered "departed" when they disconnect from the terminal, so they can be "on time" (another meaningless KPI) even if they don't actually take off an hour later.

> Like ordering the passangers by seat number already in the terminal.

Yes please. The standard boarding process is retarded, and they could cut the time to 1/3 if they pre-sorted people before borading...

> as far as I know the reason for the long "everybody boarded but airplane not moving" wait times

I always assumed the airplane & airport crew is just running through some safety checklists in the time between boarding and taking off.

> Like ordering the passangers by seat number already in the terminal.

Mythbusters tested this and it actually performed pretty poorly: https://mythresults.com/airplane-boarding

Isn’t this like McDonalds advertising the cheapest burger but only giving you an empty bun because the meat patty is the most time consuming part of the cooking process?

There’s already too much misdirection in airline ticket sales, we need less not more.

If many people desire only the empty bun (gag me) then it's not so insane to show a price for that.

I was on a Ryanair flight last month from Malaga to Berlin; less than half (a lot less) had overhead luggage.

Did they check baggage or not carry any?

I have no idea. :-)

I didn't stalk people about it or anything. I myself actually paid for a bag in order to be able to carry-on my guitar, only to be told at the gate that I needed to gate check it (but with assurances that they'd be very careful, etc - although it's a carbon fiber guitar in a hard case, so I wasn't too worried).

So I got on the plane without a carry-on. Then I noticed... that most other people did too.

The luggage carousel in Berlin was pretty packed, but it's hard to really say how many people did or didn't check. I imagine Ryanair keeps tabs on these things fairly tightly, as its a crucial part of their model.

Thanks, sounds like if the carousel was jammed that lots of people were checking bags.

I can't imagine getting on a plane to a different country without a bag at all.

Make sure to do a proper survey next time though! ;oP

> Malaga to Berlin

This strongly suggests they had checked in luggage and simply didn't want to pay even more just to bring some in the cabin. A flight is not like a taxi ride, you're all but guaranteed you need luggage. So I think the cause-effect relationship works the other way. People don't bring hand luggage because they plan based on the cheap fare only to discover it doesn't include that.

The only reason prices are advertised as such is that they can initially stand out as being cheap. Many people will just go for it because it's hard to make an apples to apples comparison with an airline that gives you everything in a single package. Services that are now in a race to the bottom (airlines, mobile operators, etc.) are using these strategies more and more to differentiate themselves. But it's all done through misleading advertisement.

What the parent proposed is like McDonalds having to advertise the price of a burger with the meat, but offering a discount if you just want the bun.

Especially in Italy, I try to avoid checked baggage at all cost, because:

1) They charge you for it

2) They steal it

3) They lose it.

So yeah don't blame the passengers.

> On the other hand, storing hand luggage overhead is one of the most time consuming parts of the boarding process, which is even worse with Ryanair's short intereuropean flights. All that time spent on hand luggage costs money, and it seems only fair to make those pay that cause the delay, incentivizing people to take less luggage (bags that can be stored under your seat are still free). It makes economic sense for everyone.

Actually the main problem here was the airlines dis-incentivizing checked luggage, by introducing charges for it. Planes are designed to carry luggage in the hold, not the cabin, but if you charge to carry luggage in the hold, customers are going to try to bring as much as they can into the cabin.

> To satisfy both sides of the argument, you could show the price with large hand luggage fee included, and offer a discount if you show up without hand luggage. If you extend that concept, you arrive at a "base feature set" that has to be included in the base price of any flight, and from there you can add surcharges and discounts.

I agree. IMHO, there needs to be regulation standardizing what's included in a ticket for advertising purposes. Now every airline has their own unique way of nickle and diming you, and it so time consuming and troublesome to figure out whats the best deal for traveling from A to B in a reasonable fashion. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out what the most common features that a typical travelers uses.

Ryanair brought this on themselves. They charged for checked in bags and everyone rightly started bringing hand luggage only. Problem is that Ryanair didn't design their planes for everyone bringing large hand luggage and so they forced people to put them in the hold.

Airlines like Jet2 have designed their overhead bins with more hand luggage in mind. Jet2 bins fit 4 hang luggages vertically rather than the 2 horizontally that most Ryanair planes fit.

This isn't a problem of space it's a problem of design and not realising the consequences of your own actions.

Not sure how I feel about this. It annoyed my greatly on my last RyanAir flight that in order to take a slightly larger than laptop sized bag (35L) I had to pay for priority which was 8 quid or whatever. A Primera flight I've just booked is now doing exactly the same. Small bag free, bigger bag not so. But, as some of the comments here, I think it sped things up once on the plane. However, adding the extra charge leaves a bitter taste in my mouth - "here's the price for you cheap flight, but here's the actual 20% more price now you have to add a bag". It'll be a smooth win for the first aggregator (Skyscanner or whoever) that adds a 'taking max size cabin bag' option to their search and includes it in the price.

Google flights already has an "access to the overhead bins" tick box, but yes, there is space to improve the comparison.

I'd say this is an open problem in the metasearch space right now. Airlines are increasingly splitting out what you do and don't get with your ticket into different fare classes, which they brand and line item themselves, making it difficult for a typical traveler to make heads or tails of whether they do or do not get a cabin bag or complimentary meal, etc.

I travel quite often in Europe and took a fairly amount of Ryanair flights as well. The amount of people rushing in to the plane and messing around when it's time to put their stuff in the overhead lockers is incredible, even as fellow passenger this is super annoying hence I don't blame Ryanair at all.

Also, even if you have to pay for the luggage, Ryanair still comes often cheaper than traditional airlines. If you want all the perks you can just fly Alitalia and you're set.

Why not charging by passenger weight then?

I understand why this is being downvoted, and agree that it's not a nice point to try and argue - however it is somewhat irksome when I (as a recovering anorexic with a very small physical footprint) is penalised for a baggage weight allowance and yet there's no difference in seat cost between myself at 51kg and someone at twice that.

Completely appreciate there's no fair way to police it (other than that, I think Samoan airline, who charged based on the person/bag weight combination), but I think it's indicative of it all being a bit of a sham. Of course weight increases costs of flying, but is an extra 1kg in a checked bag really worse than carrying 20/30kg more of fat or muscle?

Baggage pricing isn't really about cost, it's a means of (a) taking the cost out of the list price, like ebay when posting prices weren't included; and (b) doing price discrimination against customers.

Weight is largely irrelevant. The difference between a airliner full of 45Kg people versus 90Kg people constitutes about 5% of the total plane weight. Some fuel savings but would not be worth the aggravation, client humiliation, lawsuits etc.

What it boils down to is volume and time. A passenger takes up a seat regardless of how large he is (...) so he's charged for a seat. Luggage changes that equation far more than passenger body weight.

> A passenger takes up a seat regardless of how large he is

I'm only halfway joking when I say I've lost many an elbow into the side of someone substantially larger than I. For some "a seat" is "their seat + several inches of mine".

I know it's not really the problem at hand, but it's poor proxy for volume, and again, just shows that the weight fee is just a sham.

Just going to start manufacturing a "flight jacket" with pockets for all your luggage...

> Just going to start manufacturing a "flight jacket" with pockets for all your luggage...

Already there...

https://www.skyscanner.net/news/best-wearable-luggage-jacket...

I took a fairly short Ryanair flight recently, and it was much nicer with these new baggage rules.

No-one was rushing to board first, in order to fit their sized-to-the-limit suitcase into an overhead locker. There was plenty of room left for handbags, small backpacks and so on, so those (like me) who'd paid for checked luggage didn't have to have their small bag around their feet. Boarding was noticeably faster.

These were my biggest annoyances before.

Firstly, travelers are consenting adults that should understand and accept the baggage policy - or use a different airline. The market is extremely competitive.

Secondly, as a person who has traveled backpack for years, I find the whole "luggage is an essential element of air transport" line quite offensive. It's a service I want to purchase but you won't let me because some guy might be confused by a price comparison app to buy a baggage-less ticket (mind you, not even by Ryanair themselves, on their website it is very clear what you get for the price). It's revolting.

use a different airline. The market is extremely competitive.

Ryanair is the only airline to certain destinations no matter how much you are willing to pay. And they have form for manipulation. For a long time if you wanted to opt out of their insurance, you had to set that as your nationality...

> Ryanair is the only airline to certain destinations

Surely it's not Ryanair's fault if others are not willing to compete for certain destinations.

Maybe, but you cannot say that the market is "extremely competitive" and "others are not willing to compete" at the same time.

I'm not the one who said the market is "extremely competitive". For sure is a market with high barriers to entry, very expensive to be in and profit margins are not that high either.

So if you are Ryanair you aim at doing more destinations and paid "extras", if you are Alitalia you aim at doing fewer destinations on a much bigger price mark.

> it’s a very competitive market

> it’s not their fault there’s no competition

Perhaps you could rephrase your rebuttal? It doesn’t quite make sense as I am interpreting it.

There have been various dodgy dealings around subsidies, it’s by no means as clear-cut as that. This freezes rivals out.

dodgy dealings = lobbying. Everyone does it in every industry unfortunately for us consumers.

Really? Where? I don’t doubt there are one or two, but most of their routes seem to be similar to the national carriers (though often to a different airport).

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