Warning to passengers as Ryanair plans BIGGER bonuses for staff spotting oversized bags
The budget airline currently pays staff approximately €1.50 (£1.30) for stopping passengers with oversized bags from boarding the aircraft.
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Currently, staff bonuses for doing this are capped at €80 (£70) a month.
Passengers who are unlucky enough to get caught out by the airline's staff are charged a fee of up to €75 (£65) for bringing luggage that is larger than they paid for while booking their journey.
Ryanair currently allows passengers to bring a small under-seat carry-on bag, measuring a maximum of 40x20x25cm for free.
If a passenger wants to bring larger luggage or more bags with them, then they will need to pay an additional fee. Cabin bags can be no more than 10kg and must measure 55x40x20cm and incur a fee, as do larger bags up to 20kg placed in the hold.
Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary said today that summer fares are expected to be the same as 2023, but added that he expects a boost in profitability for the airline by "controlling costs".
Members of the European Parliament are currently pushing for airlines to allow passengers to bring on board a free personal item and a small cabin bag.
However, Mr O'Leary predicted the proposals would not come into law due to a lack of space on planes.
He told Morning Ireland: "We're flying largely full flights, about half the passengers can bring two bags and the other half can only bring one – because that's all that fits in the plane.
"We're already struggling with that amount of baggage.
"That's one of the reasons we are so aggressive about eliminating the scourge of passengers with excess baggage."
I've major hack to find cheapest flights on Ryanair website - it's a game-changer and perfect for budget travellers
The airline's CEO added that more than 99.9 per cent of passengers comply with baggage rules, with 'sizers' located at the airport.
He shared: "We are happy to incentivise our [staff] with a share of those excess baggage fees, which we think will decline over the coming year or two.
"It is about €1.50 (£1.30) per bag – and we're thinking of increasing it, so we eliminate it."
Earlier this month, a leaked email revealed how airport staff earn bonuses for catching out passengers travelling with oversized luggage.
The email described how Swissport ground handling staff could receive £1.20 per bag they seize from passengers with large bags at airport gates.
The email was sent to Swissport employees at seven UK airports and described this as "the easyJet gate bag revenue incentive".
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The email added that it was intended to "reward agents doing the right thing".
Essentially, when an easyJet passenger's bag is identified as oversized and they are charged £48 at the gate for this, £1.20 of that is paid to the ground handler.
At the time, a spokesman for Swissport told The Sun: "We serve our airline customers and apply their policies under terms and conditions for managing their operation.
"We're highly professional and our focus is on delivering safe and efficient operations, which we do day in and day out for four million flights per year."
And a spokesperson for easyJet told The Sun: "EasyJet is focused on ensuring our ground handling partners apply our policies correctly and consistently in fairness to all our customers.
"Our bag policies and options are well understood and we remind customers of this when booking, before they travel and on their boarding pass which means a very small proportion of customers who don't comply will be charged at the airport."
Ryanair hand luggage size change
FOLLOWING Ryanair's announcement of changing its hand luggage rules, here are the most up-to-date guidelines.
Ryanair recently announced that they would be changing the size of their hand luggage allowance from 40x20x25cm to 40x30x20cm - an increase of 5cm.
The change in size means that Ryanair's free hand luggage size has increased from an overall capacity of 20 litres to 24 litres.
All airports will now need to change the size of the baggage sizers for the airline, to be able to check bags against the new measurements.
The size change comes after new EU rules have been set out, which will ban airlines from charging for small carry on bags.
A Ryanair spokesperson said: "Following the new EU minimum bag size of 40x30x15cm, Ryanair will increase its max 'personal bag' dimensions to 40x30x20cm, so that Ryanair's 'personal bag' allowance is bigger than the EU standard.
"This change will be implemented over the coming weeks, as our airport bag sizers are adjusted."
Ryanair is also calling on all UK passengers to take action after 7,000 delayed in one day alone this week.
Plus, Brit tourists have been left stranded after a Ryanair flight to a holiday hotspot island 'accidentally leaves every suitcase back in UK'.
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