Ryanair has doubled down on its claims that its baggage policies remain entirely unchanged, and dismissed as misinformed “hearsay” the stories of hundreds of Irish Times readers who said they were forced to pay for bags previously carried on at no cost.
Last week, we highlighted the stories of three readers who said they paid up to €75 at Ryanair boarding gates to check in bags they had previously been able to carry on board, as they were now deemed to be too big.
In response, the airline rubbished any suggestion that things had changed and said new stickers put on its sizers at boarding gates were there “to show the exact permitted dimensions of our two bag sizes (40 x 20 x 25cm) and (55 x 40 x 20cm)”.
The company at the time told us that the new stickers “show that our permitted dimensions are smaller than our sizers. Our sizers are, therefore, bigger than our permitted/agreed bag sizes. Only bags that do not fit within our sizers (and so considerably exceed our agreed bag sizes) get charged for.”
The statement concluded by saying that its bag policy was “simple”, and if a bag “fits in our bag sizer (which is bigger than our agreed dimensions), it gets on free of charge. If it doesn’t fit within our sizers, it will be charged. There has been no change in this policy for many years, so what you have been told is false.” In response to that story, we heard from hundreds of readers who insisted that what Ryanair had told us was false.
Here are just some of those stories.
JULIE: I flew Ryanair from Knock to Manchester to Brussels on St Patrick’s Day with my standard airline bag, which weighed 7kg. In Knock, it fit perfectly within the sizer, but the Ryanair agent said it was too deep, so I had to pay. No problem at all in Manchester – I sailed through.
DAVID: I was hit in mid-February. This bag is at least 20 years [old] and [has] travelled a million times on Ryanair.
FIONA: I flew from Dublin to Gatwick on Sunday, March 23rd, and as usual had booked priority plus a 10kg carry-on bag. I was using the same bag I’ve used on Ryanair for years and it only weighed 6kg so when they asked me to place it in the bag sizer I was unfazed, until they told me it didn’t fit. It clearly did fit, but the check-in staff pointed out a line of yellow tape inside the sizer and told me the bag couldn’t extend over this yellow line. So Ryanair’s response to you that “if it fits in our bag sizer (which is bigger than our agreed dimensions), it gets on free of charge” is not true; my bag fitted and I was still charged.
JIM: I had a similar experience boarding a Ryanair flight to Malaga last Friday. I was using a bag I had used without incident many times before and was asked to place it in a “sizer”. Turned out it fitted the sizer but was pronounced too big. I was charged €75 to have it put in the hold.
AIDAN: The exact same thing happened to me with Ryanair a few weeks ago. The bag was fine London to Dublin, but then three days later on the return there were a number of people struggling to mash their bags into the “sizers” and we all had to pay the fines.
CIARAN: I fly approximately once per month with Ryanair and have used the same 10kg bag for many years. I was recently stopped at Dublin Airport and subjected to the €75 hustle.
ULTAN: My partner and I recently flew to the Canary Islands with Ryanair and my partner was hit with a €75 baggage charge in the same way your readers described. Noting Ryanair’s response, I wonder will they be in contact to arrange a refund, as the offending bag clearly fit into the sizer.
DAVID: Myself and my wife travelled from Dublin to Budapest on February 19th, 2025. We had each booked a 10kg carry-on bag with priority boarding. We both have the same type of bag, which we have been using for the last 10 years on Ryanair with no issue. The bags are a soft sports type bag with a pull handle and wheels. They are both compressible and so always fitted into the overhead lockers.
We were asked to put our bags into the new measuring frame and while there was loads of room, the carrying handle was approx 1cm too long, which prevented the bag from fitting completely. We were then both billed for €60 (€120 in total) by the Ryanair staff.
MICHAEL: This happened [to] me, too, a few weeks ago on a flight from Stansted to Luxembourg. If the wheels of the bag were outside the sticker, they charged you and made you check it. I’ve been using the same bag for five years and never once encountered it.
IAN: I had the exact same issue on a return flight from Edinburgh on St Patrick’s Day. No problem when flying out from Cork. I have been flying with Ryanair for years with the same hard-shell bag. I had actually flown the same route a month before. My bag fit in the sizer, but I was still charged.
ALBERT: I have a Samsonite, internationally recognised, cabin bag. It has also been recognised and accepted by Ryanair for the last five years since I received it as a gift. I fly about 20 to 30 times a year with Ryanair and have never experienced before what happened when boarding my flight to Lanzarote last month. For the first time ever, the male Ryanair staff member asked me to put the cabin bag in the sizer and I popped it in with no bother and he demanded that I pay €60 as it didn’t meet the measurement requirements.
PAULA: On my recent flight from Dublin to Lisbon, the entire flight had to put their bags in the sizers at the boarding gate and many of the bags did not fit within the yellow stickers within the sizers. Many passengers had to pay an additional €75 per person to put their bags in the hold, myself and my partner included. We have both travelled for years with our suitcases without any problem.
RORY: I had the same experience as your other readers on a flight from Dublin to Malta in February. The bag fitted in the sizer, but the Ryanair staff said it needed to be behind the sticker. I tried to reason that [I] had flown with that same bag countless times with Ryanair but had to fork out €75 to get on the flight.
The Irish Times brought these stories – and more – to Ryanair and explained that they represented just a fraction of the stories shared with us after the first piece appeared.
We noted that the stories contradicted what the Ryanair press office had told us – and, by extension, our readers.
This is what came back.
“Passengers ‘sharing their stories’ is not indicative of anything other than misinformed passengers. If any of these passengers had a bag that met, or was smaller than, our agreed bag dimensions (40x20x25cm and 55x40x20cm), then it would have been carried on board our aircraft without issue.
“Most of your hearsay claims appear to be from passengers who have travelled in the past with their outsized bag, without being charged, who now appear to believe that this entitles them to fly with their outsized bag, but not to be subject to the bag charge.
“Our bag policy is very simple, and it is agreed by each passenger prior to travel. If the bag meets, (or is smaller than) our agreed dimensions, it gets on without charge. If it is not, then it is bigger than our agreed dimensions, and it will be charged. We can’t guarantee it will be charged every time a passenger flies, but if passengers do not comply with their agreed bag dimensions, then we expect our handlers to charge them appropriately.
“There is a very simple solution to this issue, which is that passengers simply comply with their agreement of the time of booking, and travel with bags that fit, or are smaller than, our agreed bag dimensions.
“We receive occasional complaints from passengers, that their bag was “only slightly” bigger than our sizer, or “only the wheels did not fit” in the sizer. These claims are baseless. If the entire bag doesn’t fit within the sizer (and our sizers are bigger than our agreed max dimensions), then the bag is outsized and will be charged.
“We carry more than 4m passengers each week, and only a tiny number of passengers are charged for outsized bags, and then only because their bag fails to comply with our agreed bag sizes. Your invented claim, which suggests that Ryanair “misinforms the travelling public about those rules” is false.
“Our bag policy is clearly communicated to, and agreed by, every passenger at time of booking! There has been no change to these rules for many years and therefore the ‘stories from your readers’ are just that, ‘stories’.
“By the way, none of these ‘stories’ ‘flatly contradict’ our statement dated 28 Mar. This is yet another false claim on your part.”
