Posted on Thursday, 7 September 2017

Ryanair passengers will only be able to take a single piece of hand luggage on board flights from November 1, unless they pay £5 for Priority Boarding.

The budget carrier announced the move in an effort to reduce delays caused by a shortage of overhead locker space.

Second, larger wheelie bags will have to be checked in at the gate – free of charge – then collected at baggage reclaim on arrival.

Ryanair wants more people to check luggage in the hold and is therefore reducing the fee from £35 to £25. The airline is also increasing the weight limit on hold luggage, from 15kg to 20kg.

Lowering hold luggage fees will cost the carrier around 50m euros (£46m) annually.

Kenny Jacobs, the airline's chief marketing officer, said too many people were taking two bags on board busy flights, meaning limited overhead luggage space was filled up and flights were delayed. Jacobs said customers would still be able to carry two bags on board.

According to Jacobs, on a typically busy flight most seats were occupied, often leaving insufficient space for luggage. A 189-seat plane only has space for around 90 bags in overhead lockers.

“We're making these changes because our flights are so much busier,” he said. “A number of people will have two very large bags, taking up someone else's space. They'll hope they'll get away with it and generally they have, but we don't want to go back to policing bags at the gate.”

Jacobs explained that in 2013, when the second bag allowance was introduced, the airline's flights were 82 per cent full. That figure has since risen to 97 per cent.

“These bag policy changes will cost Ryanair more than €50m a year in reduced checked bag fees. However, we believe offering bigger bags at reduced fees will encourage more customers to consider checking in a bag,” he said.

“We hope that by restricting non-priority customers to one small carry-on bag – their wheelie bag must be placed in the hold, free of charge at the boarding gate – this will speed up the boarding of flights and eliminate flight delays being caused by not having sufficient overhead cabin space on busy flights to accommodate over 360 carry-on bags.”

Passengers can add Priority Boarding for £5 when they book their flight, or for £6 up to an hour before the scheduled departure time.

Under the new arrangements, passengers may experience delays at their destination as they wait for their bags to appear on the reclaim carousel.

However, Jacobs said: “More than 90% of the time your bag will be on the carousel when you get there,” in part due to security checks which are now taking longer.

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