Ryanair jettisons luggage fee for two million passengers

RYANAIR has dropped its plan to charge non-priority passengers for booking in a 10kg bag after it was met with customer criticism and confusion.

Last week, the airline eliminated the 10kg free bag allowance for non-priority customers and said it would now charge them €8.

Following major uproar, it announced yesterday it would be allowing the two million nonpriority customers who booked on or before August 31 and are due to fly after November 1 to book in the 10kg at no charge.

The company faced online criticism after it said last week that it would charge customers for basic baggage.

One passenger on Twitter said: ‘Now that Ryanair has forced us to pay if we want to bring a cabin bag and another small bag, the queue for priority boarding is ridiculously long.’

Another Twitter user noted: ‘So Ryanair introduce a baggage policy that affects a flight you’ve already booked. There was no forewarning of the change so why would you add bags or priority? Yet you still have to pay the more expensive cost for not adding at the time of booking.’

According to Ryanair, approximately 50,000 passengers who booked on or before August 31 bought an upgrade to priority boarding and could continue to bring their small item and a 10kg on the flight with them.

The company has said that all those who purchased the upgrade, many to avoid the new baggage fee, will be refunded the extra money they paid and be allowed to keep the priority boarding free of charge.

The baggage charge took effect from September 1 and in the following days, Ryanair said that more than ten thousand customers had paid the new €8 charge.

At the time, the company said that it was making the change because the tagging and booking in of bags at the gate was causing flight delays during the summer.