Not sure if everyone is aware, but Ryanair are now charging for checked luggage. The charges were introduced on the 16 March.

From their website:

"Passengers travelling with checked in luggage will pay a nominal fee of £2.50 (€3.50) per bag, per one way flight if prebooked on our website at the time of reservation or via a Ryanair call centre (up to 4 hours prior to scheduled flight departure), or £5.00 (€7.00) per bag, per one way flight if presented unbooked at the airport."

All the FAQs about ryanair buggage charges are here:

http://tinyurl.com/m5uwb

Just a heads up to anyone who is flying with them soon....

r

Does anyone know if people who booked before this went into place (that is, before the fares were cut to compensate for the baggage charge, and didn't have the option to say they were going to check bags) have to pay? I've looked around the ryanair website, but haven't found the answer.

one would assume, that all those customers who purchased tickets prior to the implementation of the new pricing for luggage would not be liable to pay such charges. Although can one assume anything with ryanair...hmmmm.

If it doesn't say so on the website then I would assume anyone traveling will pay the "nominal" fee. You and I know that very few, if any, people will cancel their flight if they get to check-in and get charged; if they do then they lose out completely.

This "phenomenon" of charging for checked luggage has been predicted and you can bet, bugget carrier or not, that other airlines will watch this closely and consider implementing the same policy.

considering you would not have been able to "pre-book" your £2.50 luggage charge on the website (as the charge didn't exist at that time you purchased your ticket), I can't see how ryanair could then justify charging you the higher £5 charge for "unbooked" luggage when there was no way to "pre-book" your luggage.

Retrospecively adding charges seems like particularly bad business practice.

If they do plan to charge customers who purchased tickets prior to the introduction of the checked luggage charge, i am suprised they haven't sent emails to all those customers to advise of the "luggage charges".

I read the extra charge would not be charged for bookings made prior to the announcement. It should be in the Ryanair press release on the web site. Print it and take it with you if you like.

Bookings prior to March 16 are exempt from new rule. Do know! Ryanair is doing all possible to enable it to operate at its present low cost! A waste manager at RA probably discovered that most passengers never use all the junk they haul about.

It will be interesting to see the effect of this new rule on carryons.

I am sure a lot of people will want to carry on obviously oversized bags to avoid the check fee. I am hoping Ryan will not allow this since it will make it difficult for people with legal sized bags to find room for them.

On the other hand, RyanAir will have a lot of financial incentive to enforce the carryon limits, because when they make someone check an overlimit bag they tried to carry on, they would get to charge the higher €7 fee for a bag checked at the gate.

I hope some people will report back on the results.