Ryanair has announced plans to increase the bonus paid to staff for catching oversized carry-on baggage, starting from November.
CEO Michael O’Leary has shared that it would raise the bonus from the current rate of €1.50 per oversized bag to €2.50.
At the same time, the €80 monthly cap on bonuses will be removed, meaning there’s unlimited earnings to be had for staff.
“I want our ground-handling people to be catching people who are scamming the system,” O’Leary said at a press conference in London, as reported by The Times. “I am still mystified by the number of people with rucksacks who think they are going to get through the gate and we won’t notice. We will — and you will be paying for the rucksack.”
It was only publicly confirmed in July that such a bonus was paid. Ryanair is not alone in paying such bonuses, with Swissport, an aviation company that runs passenger gates at airports, also offering an employee bonus of £1.20 per bag for catching easyJet passengers travelling with cabin luggage that exceeds limits.
What happens if you take oversized bags on Ryanair flights?
Ryanair has strict limits on the size of the small bag it allows customers to take on flights for free, with them not allowed to exceed 40cm x 20cm x 25cm. These bags must be able to fit under the seat in front of you.
If you bring a bigger bag, the budget airline will charge you up to €75 in penalties. If you book a larger carry-on bag of up to 10kg, measuring 55cm x 40cm x 20cm in advance, it will cost you anywhere from €6.
Ryanair charges customers up to €75 per bag in penalties for seeking to board planes with oversized baggage. The airline allows customers to take a small bag (40cm x 20cm x 25cm) that fits under the seat in front of them for free. It charges an additional fee for a larger carry-on cabin bag of up to 10kg (55cm x 40cm x 20cm), prices starting at €6.
Earlier this year, Ryanair announced it would increase its cabin bag size by 20 per cent, matching standards set by the European Union at the same time. This makes it easier to travel across Europe, if you’re flying to and from a country with different airlines but are carrying the same bag.
It’s estimated that around 200,000 Ryanair passengers pay the excess baggage fee every year year, just 0.1 per cent of the 200 million passengers who flew on the airline in total.
This comes as Ryanair also announced it would be adding five new routes from London, including services to Wroclaw in Poland and Monastir in Tunisia.
