PLANE GREEDY!

Ryanair rakes in £7.7m a day charging for ‘extras’ Airline makes £1.4bn from add-ons in 6 months

RYANAIR raked in £7.7million a day in extra charges from its passengers over the summer holidays.

A surge in the number of people paying extra to reserve a seat or bring a second bag on board helped the budget airline generate £1.4billion from add-ons in just six months.

Passengers are now paying an average of £32.76 for extras per return flight – up around 16 per cent from £28.12 a year ago.

In results posted yesterday, the Irish-based carrier revealed the amount it generated from ‘ancillary sales’ soared by 28 per cent in the six months to the end of September. Ryanair flew 86million passengers in that time, 11 per cent more than during the same period last year.

The carrier yesterday said that basic fares had fallen by 5 per cent over the past year. But the increased demand for so-called ‘extras’ has wiped out the benefit to passengers.

And add-ons now account for more than a third of the overall cost paid per customer.

Last night one consumer campaigner said Ryanair was still the ‘king of extra charges’.

In a statement to the stock market, the airline said ‘more guests chose priority boarding and preferred seat services’, but critics say passengers are effectively being forced to pay extra following a crackdown on cabin baggage.

Since November last year travellers must pay between £12 to £28 for priority boarding on a return flight if they want to bring a standard size bag such as a wheelie suitcase or holdall on board.

Those who choose not to pay can only bring one bag small enough to fit under the seat in front.

Alternatively they can pay £20 to £35 to check in a bag weighing up to 10kg, which they could previously take on board for free.

Ryanair has claimed the changes were not designed to raise money but were introduced to cut delays caused by passengers bringing on more luggage than could fit into overhead lockers. The airline has

‘One of the harsher airlines’

also been accused of cashing in on fears that families will be split up if they do not pay extra to reserve their seats.

Ryanair insists it does not deliberately separate groups, but an investigation by the Civil Aviation Authority found Ryanair passengers were twice as likely to be split up if they do not pay extra to reserve a seat than those on other airlines.

Seat reservation costs between £6 and £14 for a return flight.

Guy Anker, deputy editor of Moneysavingexpert, said: ‘Ryanair’s flights are not expensive but it has long been the king of extras.

‘Undoubtedly, its extremely harsh policy of making you pay to take a standard size item of hand luggage on board is clearly boosting its profits at the expense of passengers.

‘It has also been one of the harsher airlines in not automatically sitting groups together,’ he added. ‘Having to pay extra to sit with your family is galling for passengers.

‘Airlines are no longer hiding these extra charges, but they are still sneaky as they are stripped out at the beginning of the booking process to make flights look cheaper.’

The rise in extra charges helped cushion the blow of rising fuel costs, with Ryanair’s fuel bill rising 22 per cent to £1.35billion in the six months to the end of September.

Profits of just under £1billon were unchanged from the same period last year. But the airline warned delays to the delivery of new fuel efficient Boeing 737 Max aircraft will hit its profits for the full year.

The planes have been grounded since March, after two crashes within months of each other killed 346 people. Ryanair declined to comment on the results.