A Ryanair passenger lost £75 from their holiday spending money after falling foul of the airline’s ‘if it fits, it flies’ measuring stand.
Austin Price, 28, was flying from Bristol Airport to Krakow, Poland, this month when he was asked to place is suitcase in the stand before boarding.
He’d flown with it before and was adamant it fit, but a ‘rather rude’ Ryanair employee told him he would have to pay because it was too big.
Austin said: ‘I literally used it a month ago with easyjet. I flew with Ryanair in April with the same bag and had no issues.’
Sharing an image of the luggage on social media, the cyber security worker from Devon said: ‘What kind of f**kery is this? Just been charged £75 for a bag which clearly fits. Sort this sht out.’
What the photo showed though was a sliver of his suitcase sticking out the front of the stand, which Austin blames on ‘wonky’ wheels.
Ryanair requires items of luggage to fit within three dimensions of height, width and depth – 55 x 40 x 20cm – for a 10kg bag allowed with priority boarding.
Although Austin met the first of the two, the suitcase appears deeper than allowed, leading Ryanair to say Austin was ‘correctly required to pay a standard gate baggage fee of £75’.
Austin said: ‘They have changed the [measuring] boxes now. Before, you could wheel the suitcase in, while the new ones are like an open gap, almost like they are trying to catch people out.
‘My suitcase was the size that fit in the gap and I have a photo of it sitting in, but because the wheels area a bit stiff it wouldn’t sit flat because of the weight of the wheels.
‘The wheels are not the size of the suitcase. I said it clearly fits in but he said that I have to pay.
‘I thought it was only going to be around £28 as it is on their website and I thought ‘that’s annoying but I’ll take the hit, gave my bank details and all of a sudden I got charged £75.’
Austin claimed he didn’t get a chance to remove anything from the suitcase, although its hard shell would have limited the impact.
He believes the staff member was ‘trying too much to do his job’ and doing it ‘poorly’.
He said: ‘There were a few people that had to pay for their luggage as well. There was someone with a tiny little pram and they had to pay also.
‘The majority of people we saw on the way out were on the same flight back and no one had to pay, not one person.
‘It’s one of those frustrating things, some people lose a big part of their spending money, some people are going on these holidays on a budget and can only afford three or four meals out on their holiday.
‘It would be better to spend that money on a nice meal with your partner on holiday than paying double for luggage that you have already paid for as priority.’
A Ryanair spokesperson said: ‘This passenger’s bag exceeded the dimensions allowed for a 10kg cabin bag and was correctly required to pay a standard gate baggage fee of £75 to carry a 10kg cabin bag onboard.’
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