Ryan air – How tight?

What’s everyone’s experience with Ryan air? Booked a flight with on board luggage ( no Hold luggage ) Will I get away with taking a slightly bigger ruck sack ( weeks ski holiday ) on board as opposed to a standard small case?

Tickets are £30 return to Verona from Brum, so a real bargin.

They will probably weigh your bag and try to fit it into the size gauge. If it’s over on either they will make you check it in and charge a premium.

Extremely tight by the sound of it.

They will probably weigh your bag and try to fit it into the size gauge. If it’s over on either they will make you check it in and charge a premium.

This. Also depends a bit on how full the flight is + the mood of the person checking you in.

If you follow their rules you’ll be absolutely fine. Try and take the piss and they’ll (rightly) start charging you

You can carry one cabin bag weighing up to 10 kg with maximum dimensions of 55cm x 40cm x 20cm, plus 1 small bag up to 35 x 20 x 20 onboard the aircraft.

Ryanair are great if you play their game. There is no wiggle room though. No way could I get a weeks ski holiday stuff into carry on. Better to book luggage in advance and avoid bring pissed at them for telling you the bag is too big. Prices aren’t too bad in advance

You can wear as much as you like and stuff your pockets. Not ideal for travelling but it gets you through check in.

Also you won’t need much. There isn’t any snow at the moment.

I travel Ryanair a lot. In the last year or two they have become a lot more easy going with luggage. You could still meet someone that screws you over if you take the piss though.

They pretty much never weigh cabin baggage. You’ll usually get away with a rucksack as long as you can squash it into the measuring thing they have (some force maybe required!). Rucksacks tend to look big though with all the straps so a duffel type bag might be better.

Recently the second small bag thing seems to have become quite lax. So maybe pack the bag and have a spare carrier bag at the ready if you need to split it into two bags.

Ski boots won’t be allowed though. I’ve never had a problem just clipping a helmet onto the outside of the bag.

Good luck!

Their business model is about charging you extra. If your bag looks too big they will put it in the frame and charge you if they can. Their check-in bag size has decreased quite a lot over the years. As above if you stick by their rules and check-in times you will be fine. Personally I avoid them like the plague but there are some airports where they are the only option.

Also most passengers try and get away with hand luggage only so space in the aircraft is very tight

My experience is the same as pablojm’s. They’re rarely bothered. I think it’s probably more hassle (read expense) for them to weigh/size-check everyone’s bag than it is just to herd you onto the plane and hope it fits. This may be different if you have a full flight (esp. if they gate check luggage) or you encounter a jobsworth.

I’ve taken a 65l rucksack on a few budget airlines. Not full (wear some bulky clothes), and with the main straps tightened right up to make it into maybe a 40l rucksack, all the extra straps tucked in (as pablojm says, they can look big). It’ll squash into the frame, and once you’re boarded you can expand it back up.

They are very tight in my experience. Once I had to pay to put my bag in the hold. The bag was the right size to fit into the size gauge, but I had overfilled it and the front was bulging a bit which meant to get it in the size gauge you had to push it in with a bit of force. It went in, but only by pushing quite hard to squeeze it in. This was enough for them to reject it from the cabin and charge me about £60 or something to check it in.

But as has been said before, they make their money on ‘upsells’ wether you want to be upsold or not.

I try to avoid the low cost carriers as much as possible. If you book early enough you can usually get a proper scheduled carrier ticket for a competitive price, or not much more, and i’m happy to pay a small premium to fly a proper scheduled carrier. However unfortunately alot of the proper scheduled carriers seem to be moving more to the LCC models.

The last couple of budget flights I’ve taken (both EasyJet) there hasn’t been room in the overhead bins for everyone’s carry-on. This is because their business model creates a perverse incentive for people to cram their dirty weekend into a couple of mini-cases in the cabin, rather than a shared single big suitcase in the hold.

I’ve found them to be strict on dimensions, presumably for this reason.

They’re a nightmare. 9 times out of 10 unless you are first on there isn’t room for your carry on so they check them at the gate for free.

Ryanair are a lot more chilled than EasyJet these days.

remember (as noted above) that you can take 2 bags with Ryanair – ie a cabin bag and laptop bag/handbag. Which is very handy and which you’re not allowed with EasyJet.

Should go back to the good old days when flying cost a small fortune. Alternatively accept that these companies need to make money and accept these additional costs, after all you can fly between countries for the price of a round of drinks!

Except it is the low cost carriers that are making money and the traditional scheduled airlines posting hundreds of millions of pounds losses each year. The big traditional airlines far more about feeding their big intercontinental jets from the main hub airports, so they have to tie their network into the big expensive and congested airports, whereas the LCC carriers are happy to fly you to an obscure regional airport 50 miles outside of the city centre and pay zero charges.

You might be lucky, you might not.
If you get uptight about paying the penalty, you can still book hold luggage at the lower rate until you’ve checked in. But skiiing requires a lot of clohting & paraphernalia. Why not do a trial pack now, including everything you would like to take, to see how well it fits into a carry-on.
Include your thick gloves, goggles, spare shoes, washkit & be amazed how bulky it gets.

Has your question been answered between STW and UKC?

Question is – why would you want to? Nice cheap flight, but I presume you are still paying for a hotel/accommodation, a lift pass, insurance, food and bit of beer money. What overall percentage of the total holiday cost are you saving not have a hold bag vs. what percentage is the holiday shitter for only have 2 pairs of boxers and no contingency clothing etc? Imo it’s false economy – doable for a sunshine location but not for a winter one.

On my last flight, sadly with CattleClass Ryanair from Bratislava, they ignored all the hand baggage sizes. Cue bun fight and arguments for the hostesses as folk were getting on with 65lt rucsacks as handbaggage….
The hostesses then tried to get myself and another chap (and others) who had tiny laptop bags, who had paid for hold baggage, to lob our laptops down to the handlers to lob in the hold, rather than the oversize luggage chancers.
We were 10 mins late leaving as seemingly half the cabin needed re-packing.

Book it in the hold.

Having read this thread I think it should be re-titled Carpe diem how tight ?

I’ve travelled with ryanair (and easyjet) a lot this year. Only time I’ve seen staff challenge anyone’s luggage allowance was when a passenger had six items of hand luggage. It’s become pretty normal for a call to be made at the gate asking for people to put their hand luggage in the hold for free – you just leave your bag by the steps. Or you can just pay to check in a small bag – if there’s more than one of you travelling maybe you could check in one bag between you.

I’ve watched a man kick the wheels off his wheeled bag so it would fit in the Ryanair measuring cage to avoid being charged for it going in the hold. They were sticking to the rules that day.

Vacuum bags. Works well if you can compress on the way back.

My experience was that I could sneak on with hand luggage that didn’t quite fit in the thing, but we waited an hour on the tarmac for a take off time.

As a very frequent flyer with Ryan air roughly %10 take the piss with hand luggage and %10 of %10 get caught out.

tbf to ryan air the rules are clear and simples get a correct sized suitcase and the system works like clock work the overhead lockers carry four bags each and no more .. so play the game they are quite generous with the second bag.. dont take the pith and they ll wave you on with a smile.. IF the flight is full or close to it though the small print says they only guarentee hand luggage for first hundred or so.. they count then off at the gate then everything else goes in the hold.. had a BA moment in october only 8 passengers on the flight..£15 to majorca.. result

Last Ryanair flight I went on they piled up all the bags that wouldnt fit in the overhead lockers, on the floor, behind the cockpit door! Was prob 10+ years ago on a late evening flight back from spain.
Now I just book BA early. Not much price difference if you book early enough. Get to choose your seat, hold bag + cabin bag, free food and grog.

In my experience- as tight as a camel’s arse

Look up what facinating Aida have to say about them. It’s quite a factual song.

My experience is that they’re fine when flying out of the UK, but coming back are really tight. For instance from Spain they were measuring and weighing every bag.

somouk – Member

They’re a nightmare. 9 times out of 10 unless you are first on there isn’t room for your carry on so they check them at the gate for free.

I have noticed that they will tend to ask customers with hard cases to stick them in the hold, and will let those with soft luggage use the overhead.
It’s why I always use a rucksack rather than a small case when travelling light.
🙂

Never had issues with luggage size. Did have an issue of them overbooking and bumping half our family off the flight on our return from Spain. Never again.