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.
There’s already too much misdirection in airline ticket sales, we need less not more.
I was on a Ryanair flight last month from Malaga to Berlin; less than half (a lot less) had overhead luggage.
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.
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.
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.
> 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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
1) They charge you for it
2) They steal it
3) They lose it.
So yeah don't blame the passengers.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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...
Surely it's not Ryanair's fault if others are not willing to compete for certain destinations.
