Ryanair is cutting checked bag fees, increasing check-in bag sizes and restricting the number of passengers allowed to carry two pieces of luggage onto flights.
The move is aimed at encouraging more passengers to check in bags and reduce the numbers carrying two bags onto flights.
“As too many customers are availing of Ryanair’s improved two free carry-on bags service, and with high load factors – 97% in August – there is not enough overhead cabin space for this volume of carry-on bags, which is causing boarding/flight delays,” the budget carrier said.
Only passengers paying £5 for priority boarding, including Plus, Flexi Plus & Family Plus, will be allowed to bring two carry-on bags on the aircraft from November 1.
“All other, non-priority, customers will only be allowed to bring one smaller carry-on bag on board the aircraft, while their second, bigger, wheelie bag must be placed in the hold – free of charge – at the boarding gate,” the airline said.
The check-in bag allowance will increase from 15kg to 20kg for all bags from November 1.
The standard check-in bag fee will be cut from £35 to £25 for a 20kg bag.
Chief marketing officer, Kenny Jacobs, said: “These bag policy changes will cost Ryanair over €50 million p.a. in reduced checked bag fees.
“However, we believe offering bigger bags at reduced fees will encourage more customers to consider checking-in a bag, which will reduce the high volume of customers we have with two carry-on bags at the boarding gates, which is causing flight delays due to large numbers of gate bag and cabin bag offloads.
“We hope that by restricting non-priority customers to one small carry-on bag this will speed up the boarding of flights and eliminate flight delays being caused by not having sufficient overhead cabin space on busy flights to accommodate over 360 carry-on bags.
“These lower bag fees and increased bag size allowances will come into play for all bookings for travel after 1 November, and we hope our customers will enjoy the savings of our new simplified bag policy.”