Ryanair - carry on bag wrong size - 40 Euro charge

Mystic Oil said:
More to the point, is complaining a waste of time where Ryanair is concerned?
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Mystic I think the only relevant question here is the above when it comes to dealing with Ryanair - and in short the answer imho is that yes, it is a waste of time - and as pointed out it is also a waste of money! Reason is not a trait familiar to Ryanair staff.
 
I suppose, in fairness, if the bag has the capacity to hold much more , people could buy a lot of stuff in duty free and put them in the bag, thereby increasing the dimensions.
 
It wouldnt do any harm to write a letter in to ryanair customer service. I got refunds on two occasions from them no problem by doing this, the most recent only a month ago. It didnt involve luggage issues however.
 
Something that has been puzzling me about Ryanair and bag sizes.

To check in a bag, it's €50 for 15 kilos or i think €70 for 20 kilos. They are very very strict on the weight of checked in bags, you have to remove items or pay very high excess weight charges if over weight.

If you don't check in a bag, but it's oversized, you are fined €40 at the gate.
This is between €10 and €30 less than you would have to pay for booking it in advance.
Has anyone played dumb and brought a fullsized suitcase as 'carry-on', knowing that they would be stopped at the gate and fined, but happy as it costs less than booking it in to begin with, and perhaps you may even get away with it completely? It might also suit better to pay the bag fee in cash than have it added to a credit card balance.

Am I missing something?
 
liaconn said:
I suppose, in fairness, if the bag has the capacity to hold much more , people could buy a lot of stuff in duty free and put them in the bag, thereby increasing the dimensions.
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Not really, because the carryon bags are checked after duty free as you board, not before - everything you are carrying has to go into the one bag.
 

If you haven't I hope Michael O'Leary isn't lurking on here
 

The fee you pay online is for a return journey i think? If you have to pay at the gate, chances are you will have around the 10kg weight, so paying there and there you won't be able to utilise the full weight allowance.
 
Good point - so it would be €80 for the return unless you were bringing a heavy item one-way only.

You could benefit from an extra weight allowance though - They don't seem to weight the carry-on, only measure it. So I've moved items from check-in to carry-on luggage before without any problems even when it brought the carry-on to overweight. You could pack over 20kg and still pay the €40 each way, and it could work out less than checking a 22Kg bag.
 
i've seen bags being weighed - maybe more Aer Lingus than Ryanair but is it worth the headache?

I was on a flight from Johannesburg to Nairobi the other week, i had 2 bags. One was 30kg exactly (work stuff weighs a lot, not a heavy packer generally!) and the other was 8 kg, so i was 8kg over my allowance. I was able to carry the bag, in addition to my laptop bag, onto the aircraft. I did point out that technically the same amount of weight is going onto the aircraft so couldn't see why i couldn't check it in. I thought that was a bit odd, but hey, i got there in the end!
 
Yes, i know a couple who had 19kg in one bag and 21kg in the other and were made to move items between bags at the checkin desk.
No not worth the hassle - the original question was puzzling me, forgot about the 2-way journey!
 
In Hyeres airport (Toulon) all carry-on bags are weighed at check-in.
 
OP should take heart from Steiner's post (more details please Steiner) who got 2 refunds, so it can be done.
 
For someone who used to fly all the time with Ryanair I now find that I only fly with them if absolutely necessary. I sometimes wonder are they trying to force people to purchase one of their Ryanair suitcases. Incidentally are these ever selected for weighing or for measuring? I wonder would one of their own suitcases fit in to the "cardboard" measuring device?
 
flossie said:
I would interpret that they are happy to accept any passenger with a dissability, but they are still subject to the same conditions of carriage as any able bodied person, i.e. they have accepted the rules regarding travel.
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In Ireland, any person with a disability is entitled to any 'reasonable accomodation' required from any service provider, under the Equal Status Acts. You might like to check out if similar requirements apply in the country where this happened.
 
Bronte said:
OP should take heart from Steiner's post (more details please Steiner) who got 2 refunds, so it can be done.
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I have got 2 refunds from ryanair, 2 years ago and this year, neither relating to baggage. I didnt waste any time or money ringing their customer service line, I just wrote 2 letters to their Customer Service address. the first refund related to their non operation of priority boarding from spain on our return flight, so as I had paid for priority boarding, I sought and obtained a refund. This year I paid for priority boarding on a malta flight and when I checked in online I could select my seat for a fee, so I did, so in essence I paid for priority boarding twice and I sought and obtained a refund. I just posted off the letters and on both occasions a few days later I got emails saying refund would be credited to cc, and they were a day or two later no problem.
 
The OP should find out for certain if the bag is oversize or not.

Ryanair do not make their Terms and Conditions clear enough. "Strictly one item of cabin baggage per passenger (excluding infants) weighing up to 10kg with maximum dimensions of 55cm x 40cm x 20cm is permitted"

That is not clear. Does the bag have to always be below those dimensions, or only when tested? The Ryanair T&Cs don't seem to specify a method of testing for size or a time schedule for testing. So the customer can make some assumptions and that must be ok.

Can Ryanair modify your bag's shape in order to make it not fit?

Can the customer modify the bags shape in order to make it fit?

Does the bag have to be self supporting? (IE. does the bag have to be able to maintain the allowable size by itself?, or can it flop down when not propped up by a human or a box or frame?


It would seem to me that the customer should be entitled to modify their bag, and to re-present it a reasonable number of times. Sizing a bag is more difficult and takes longer than weighing a bag, so at least three to five attempts by the customer to re-shape the bag should be allowed. The bag should not have to be self supporting as that is not stated in the rules. Ryanair staff should not be allowed to modify your bag in order to make it not fit. Ryanair should provide a solid box with a lid and the correct internal dimensions, and if you can close the lid you're ok. That would be a fair test of size.


The Ryanair staff providing special assistance should have made every effort to pass the bag, and to avoid the charge. If they didn't do so may not have fulfilled their duty of care sufficiently. I would certainly write to Ryanair.



A bag of water shows why Ryanairs frame test is unfair. 55 x 40 x 20 gives a volume of 44,000, or 44 liters I think. So 43 liters of water in a black sack should pass the T&Cs as they're written,.. (ignoring the issue of an unsuitable container and unsuitable contents), .... it wouldn't be possible to pass Ryanairs Frame test with a bag of water, but it would be possible to pass a wooden box test. So the frame test imposes additional requirements, not mentioned in the T&Cs, and is thus unfair. My point is that the frame test seems to require a self supporting bag, and that is not mentioned in the T&Cs, nor it is reasonable to assume.
 
Thank you all for your helpful and considerate replies.

- The bag is 20x20x45cm (well within limits)
- The bag was not completely full, and was under the weight limit
- Passenger did not buy anything in shopping area
- Even if she had, this is one of the airports where Ryanair does allow a 2nd. bag for airport shopping (they do not advertise this, and as far as I know it is a condition imposed by the airport authorities).

My niece appears to be completely sanguine about the 40 Euro, preferring instead to dwell on the nice holiday that she had (her first foreign holiday, and the first time she had been on an aeroplane). Consequently, I have decided to let the matter drop and not to pursue a complaint (in any event, it's still not clear to me whether it is she or I that would have grounds to complain).

I will speculate that the contents of the bag "shape-shifted" to prevent it from fitting into the guage without assistance, and that the staff member was either being bloody-minded or just simply didn't care. You may be certain that if I had witnessed this treatment (of any passenger) it would not have been allowed to pass by without intervention. I have no axe to grind with Ryanair in general - I am a regular customer and I find that they offer a very good service. It's inevitable, given the number of flights and sectors that they operate, that problems like this will occur from time to time.

The discussion has raised some interesting points, and I'd like to express my appreciation for the time and trouble that AAM contributors have taken to respond.
 
Mystic Oil said:
. You may be certain that if I had witnessed this treatment (of any passenger) it would not have been allowed to pass by without intervention.
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Well to do so would no doubt leave you with Ryanair denying you boarding and probably barring you from flying with them forever. One cannot speak up or complain for fear of that and well they know it.

I think you should pop off a letter to the complaints department if only to satisfy our curiosity about the bag size rules and help the rest of us should we ever be in the unfortunate circumstands your friend was in.
 

the 50/70 is only if done at airport or via the call centers, not if booked on line in advance

http://www.ryanair.com/en/terms-and-conditions#regulations-cabinbaggage
 
I was charged €50 for a 15kg bag earlier this summer - it was €70 for 20kg, bag booked online when booking the seat.
Seems from your link that there is no general rule about checked baggage - they charge what they feel like, depending on the route.

"Each passenger may check in up to two checked bags upon payment of the applicable checked baggage fees by electing to purchase a checked baggage allowance of either 15 kilos or 20 kilos when make their initial booking. After the booking is made checked baggage can be added to a reservation via the Manage My Booking facility up to 4 hours before the scheduled flight departure time. The checked baggage fees are charged per person/per one way flight and are discounted when booked on-line. Higher baggage fees apply when checked bags are purchased via a Ryanair call centre or airport ticket desk, during peak periods and on selected routes. Fees may vary from time to time but it is the rates in force at the time you book and/or pay for your checked baggage allowance which apply."
 
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