Ryanair Routes, Fines, Fares & Lies

Working in travel I get a lot of different travel related newsletters. And this one was very interesting. It started out very well talking about 8 new routes for Ryanair. New routes and increasing their hub at "Barcelona" was good news, especially for the company I work for.
The low cost carriers are vital for companies that rely on independent travellers. Mainly because the packaged deals will be packaged so no need for external auxiliary product. And secondly, as the airports these carriers use tend to not actually be final destination of traveller. Barcelona being a case in point, as I knew their definition of Barcelona was different from the rest of the world. When I travel to Barcelona I am looking to go to Barcelona not Gerona, so a car into town is useful.

Anyway, the second half of the post was the part that annoyed me and led to this post.
I will post it here.
Meanwhile, Ryanair says that they are to give passengers a fine if they breach the baggage rules. Passengers that try to carry on more than one bag onto the cabin of the plane will be given a fine of €30. The existing rules let passengers carry as much 10 kilograms of luggage on board, but budget airlines are claiming that travelers are abusing the privilege. Now they are only allowing a single carry-on bag, in which all laptops and handbags are contained.

This is latest effort to gouge customers from Ryanair. Other airlines have a lax policy on onboard baggage. Often at the very least not counting a ladies handbag as her only bag. Whilst a few (and some in the low cost field at that) have no firm rules on weight, as long as it will fit.

Now I can understand the factors Ryanair are considering here, their planes are carefully calibrated to fly with a particular weight to use a certain amount of fuel. Fewer bags on board, less time getting the passengers off the plane, with fewer bags in the hold, less time getting them off the plane to get the plane back in the air for extra flights a day.

McNamara explained the new rules, saying the current allowance is generous already. Because of the major rise in passengers who are abusing the privilege, he continued, Ryanair is charging passengers if they have more than one piece of baggage on board. Passengers have been and will be made aware of the new rule when they book their flight, McNamara added, and the rule is also printed on their boarding cards.

I will be interested to see how they will carry this latest policy out (more below). And what effect it will have on their PR, but I suspect they will continue to thrive because despite their constant additional charges they are still the cheapest on a lot of routes and there are routes that they have a monopoly on.

And remember this latest policy follows on from their decision to increase their "credit card fee" from £4 per seat to £5 per seat this year. I put credit card fee in inverted comma's as this fee is not a per transaction percentage as credit card fees tend to be, nor is it waived or lowered for British debit cards. It is a flat per seat fee, and as such should be moved to front of booking and be included in the flight cost.

Ryanair's claim that they "charged a handling fee by banks for every passenger included in a single credit card transaction" was ridiculed by that industry last year in The Times. From the article Sources said Ryanair would be charged no more than 2.5% of the transaction total to process the payment, and due to the bargaining power of the aviation giant it is likely to be less than 2%. “It is a fraction of the charge of what is actually levied by some retailers on the web,” said one.

But then again, it has nothing to do with the fees this year, as it came up in the media again at the start of this year, and the defence this time from McNamara was that the card charges were 'necessary to meet the cost of security and creating the company's website'.

So who knows what other charges they will come up with this year, and if ABTA will be able to enforce any regulations on them.