UK Edition
The nine most swingeing Ryanair fees to watch out for
Airline that vowed to stop ‘p-----g people off’ did just that on Twitter with its £55 check-in fee – here’s why such charges persist
Complaining about Ryanair’s fees is a little like moaning about the sun being hot or water being wet. But every once in a while, a story of the low-cost carrier’s stinginess still manages to cause a stir.
The latest took place on Sunday evening when a Twitter user told the sorry tale of his parents, “in their 70s and 80s”, who “accidentally downloaded the return flight boarding cards instead of the outgoing ones”. Did Ryanair offer clemency? Alas, no.
More than nine million views and 121,000 likes later, and Ryanair’s social media team – normally so quick off the mark when it comes to posting a laddish meme – has remained eerily silent.
In Ryanair’s defence, it is the cheapest option on the vast majority of routes it offers, as well as one of Europe’s most reliable carriers when it comes to cancellations and delays. What more can one really demand of an airline?
Furthermore, its fees are made clear on its website. If you get caught out, isn’t it your own fault? Or, to quote the timeless words of boss Michael O’Leary: “You’re not getting a refund so f--- off. We don’t want to hear your sob stories. What part of ‘no refund’ don’t you understand?”
Indeed, in a statement to The Telegraph, Ryanair channelled O’Leary’s logic, if not his tone. It said: “As per Ryanair’s T&Cs, which these passengers agreed to at the time of booking, these passengers failed to check-in online for their outbound flight from Stansted Airport (Aug 11) despite being advised to do so via email the day before travel (Aug 10) and therefore were correctly charged the airport check-in fee of £55 per passenger.”
On the other hand, is a little leniency too much to ask, particularly when – as appears to be the case here – the customer has made an honest mistake?
And, given its recent record passenger numbers and bumper profits, can such money-spinning fees – which probably do not reflect the true cost of the service to the airline and are more likely to catch out older, less tech-savvy travellers – really be justified?
It’s almost a decade to the day since the aforementioned O’Leary (who made the above – deliberately provocative and slightly tongue-in-cheek – comment back in the Noughties) said Ryanair needed to “stop unnecessarily p-----g people off” in recognition of its overly nasty ways, and perhaps it has.
The “sob stories” do seem to have become less commonplace. That might be because Ryanair has eased its stance; it might be because we’ve grown so immune to them that the media is less likely to publish reports; it might be because we’ve all become better at playing the low-cost flying game and avoiding the pitfalls.
Whatever the reason, it’s not because the swingeing fees no longer exist. Here are nine of the worst to watch out for.
The airport check-in fee: £55
This is the one that caught out the parents of the Twitter user over the weekend.
Anyone who forgets to check in online (from 30 days before departure for a fee, or from four days before departure for free) will be hit with a £55 per person charge.
Online check-in can only be completed at least two hours before departure, which catches out many of those who realise they’ve forgotten when they arrive at the airport and try to do it using their phone.
For some reason, the fee is cut to £30 for flights from Spain.
The boarding card reissue fee: £20
If you check in online successfully but are unable to show a boarding pass – perhaps because you’ve lost the paper copy and haven’t downloaded the Ryanair app, or perhaps because your phone’s battery has died – you’ll have to stump up £20 per person for a new one.
This figure actually represents a significant improvement. The boarding card reissue fee was once as high as £70 per person (who can forget the tale of Suzy McLeod, who was charged €300 to print out five boarding passes before a flight from Alicante to Bristol, and later labelled an “idiot” by O’Leary?), but was cut in 2013 as part of that drive to “stop unnecessarily p-----g people off”.
In the intervening years, it creeped back up to £20.
The flight change fee: £45
The 2013 nicety campaign also saw the introduction of a 24-hour grace period during which Ryanair passengers can correct minor errors to flight bookings free of charge. After that, changing your flight costs a hefty £45 per person.
Yes, that means it’s sometimes more cost-effective to buy a new ticket entirely.
The name change fee: £115
Make an error when typing your name and the penalty is even more severe: £115. Of course, Ryanair isn’t the only airline to charge to correct a typo.
But its fee is among the worst: British Airways charges £100, easyJet £55 and Jet2 £35.
The checked bag fee: £59.99
Yes, this is an entirely optional fee. One doesn’t need to take a checked bag on holiday if one is adept at squeezing one’s belongings into a cabin case.
But it’s worth lingering over just how costly they can be on a Ryanair flight. That £59.99 per bag per flight fee applies to passengers on certain routes who check in a bag of up to 20kg at the airport (the fee when purchased online ranges from £12 to £25 per bag per flight for a 10kg bag, or £23.99-£35.99 for a 20kg bag).
The excess baggage fee: £11
If your hold bag exceeds the weight limit, you’ll need to stump up £11 per kilo at the airport kiosk, or £9 per kilo if you pay online at least two hours before departure.
Which, to be fair, is a middling amount when compared to other airlines. BA, for example, charges a flat fee of £65 for overweight luggage (though it has a bigger weight limit of 23kg), while easyJet charges a flat fee of £12.
The seat selection fee: £30
Again, this is an optional fee. You can let Ryanair assign you a seat free of charge – but then you do run the risk of being split up from other travellers on your booking.
Fees for seat selection range from £2-£15 for standard seats, depending on your route, £6-£19 for “front” seats, or £13-£30 for extra legroom seats.
The oxygen fee: £55
No, this isn’t a new wheeze where Ryanair cuts off the plane’s oxygen supply if you don’t hand over your credit card details. It is in fact a charge for the use of therapeutic oxygen – it seems those who need it for medical reasons cannot bring their own.
The being British tax: 14 per cent
Ryanair, uniquely, charges the same in pounds and euros for all extras, no matter what the official exchange rate is. This means, for example, that Britons must pay £25 to take an infant on board, while Europeans pay the equivalent of £21.56.