7 ms·

Spain fines budget airlines €150M over 'abusive' cabin bag and seat charges

72 points by cpncrunch 2y ago

cpncrunch 2y ago
I agree that the 20E charge to print a paper ticket seems excessive, but I'm not sure about the bag fees. I know it's a bit annoying to get nickle and dimed for everything, but on the other hand it makes sense to only charge passengers for the services they need.
- kyriakos 2y ago
  It's about carry on bag not checked in luggage though.
  - marcinzm 2y ago
    It still costs fuel to carry the weight and slows down the boarding/un-boarding process. Especially if overhead bins fill up and bags need to be, chaotically, checked in at the gate since then you also need more gate attendants. Some passengers don't need anything more than the personal under seat bag for their trip. So charging for carry on bags is a logical approach if you wish to minimize the operating costs of the airline which budget airlines do.
    - Detrytus 2y ago
      Planes are typically used for longer trips though, not for getting an ice-cream from the stand around the corner. It is reasonable to expect some baggage allowance, the whole trip rarely makes sense without it. Charging for carry-on bags is almost like charging you for the air you breathe. It is abusive, because it's basically lying about the real cost of the ticket.
      - ApolloFortyNine 2y ago
        I haven't checked a bag or brought a non personal item carry on in 8 years. You can easily fit 4 sets of clothes, a jacket, etc. >It is abusive, because it's basically lying about the real cost of the ticket. In the US every airline that does this makes it comically clear. Spirit, the one people always make fun of for nickel and diming, has multiple screens before you book telling you that it'll cost extra for bags. Every other airline does similar. Yes queue the 'but I have 9 children' posts, obviously then you need to pay a bag fee.
      - arp242 2y ago
        RyanAir most does fairly short trips (1-2 hours), and tons of people do weekend returns and such. You don't need checked baggage for anything less than a week. I've seen tons of people with 3 bags, huge bags, and things like that. Frustratingly, this mostly affects people like me who don't do that, because I'll be the one asked to put my relatively small backpack under the seat because they're out of space, and being close to 2 metres it's not like I have tons of space to start with. Never too happy about that. I haven't flown in a while, but generally RyanAir has been pretty relaxed about this, probably because it's just not worth the hassle and all of that. But seriously, fuck these people and fuck their fucking bags and I don't blame RyanAir for placing some incentives to stop the excesses.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
    - AshamedCaptain 2y ago
      My understand of the 1960's Spanish law which applies here is that the volume of luggage that is accepted as carry-on is fixed by the aircraft manufacturer (e.g. size of the overhead bins), and not the airline: the airline cannot arbitrarily decide the max volume of carry-on that passengers are allowed to bring (and worse, cannot selectively enforce a different limit for different passengers). I can clearly see the slippery slope if rules like this were not be enforced.
      - marcinzm 2y ago
        In my experience the overhead bins are never large enough to accommodate everyone having the allowed sized carry on luggage. Which leads to bags getting gate checked fairly often.
    - nickjj 2y ago
      > It still costs fuel to carry the weight and slows down the boarding/un-boarding process. This is true but if we want to play the pure fairness game should someone who is 150 pounds pay less than someone who is 200 pounds? What about a 90 pound kid? These are drastic differences in weight and all 3 humans would likely fit in the dimensions of 1 standard economy seat. Arbitrarily charging upwards of $200 USD to check a bag at the gate because your carry on personal item was 0.5 pounds too heavy doesn't seem reasonable. A lot of consumer grade scales aren't even accurate to half a pound, you may have done the work to measure it and be wrong because you don't have a high precision scale that's as accurate as the industrial scale at the airport.
- lxgr 2y ago
  20€ seems almost reasonable – I think I’ve seen Ryanair charge far more than 100 at some point.
  - gpm 2y ago
    100€ for a... piece of paper!?
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > 100€ for a... piece of paper!? For having a person who could be helping someone with real issues print a piece of paper instead, yes.
      - lxgr 2y ago
        I'd be more sympathetic to that view if Ryanair didn't - Prohibit showing the QR code from a PDF on your phone (it has to be printed on physical paper, or you have to use the app instead) - Make it intentionally hard/impossible to get your boarding pass bought from a third-party reseller into their first-party app In other words, my "non-real issue" was entirely manufactured by Ryanair to extract more money from me (by frustrating third-party resellers without outright banning them in a way that makes them prone to competitive lawsuits)
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        To be clear, those are problems. But a fee for a boarding-pass print only exceeding the cost of the paper it’s printed on is totally reasonable.
      - gpm 2y ago
        How much do you have to pay to get to the point where 100€ would be anything remotely close to the actual costs? If your support person is literally doing nothing 59/60ths of the time (because they're waiting around for someone to help), and it takes a whole minute to print a ticket... you're still at 100€/hour. This doesn't seem like it can be anything but ripping people off for making a mistake, or as charitably as I can possibly get making people who made a mistake subsidize flights for the more meticulous people in an attempt to make tickets (appear to) cost less to get more business.
- m463 2y ago
  I think paper tickets should be always be free. A better approach would be to offer an incentive for tickets on your phone (as long as it wasn't a data grab)
- Tenoke 2y ago
  Just checkin for free on your phone and use your phone as a ticket. I fly with Ryanair often enough and honestly wasn't even aware there's still a fee like that.
  - anonzzzies 2y ago
    As other said here; if you book via a 3rd party and you have very little experience (you are a holiday traveller), you don’t know that you have to or how to login to the Ryanair site as they don’t tell you. So when you arrive at the airport you have a nice expensive surprise for the family.
TacticalCoder 2y ago
Spain could also look into fining all these scammy car rental agencies that operate at or near airport. They are totally abusive and should be not just fined but fined to death. It's these kind of things, as in TFA, that makes life miserable for tourists.
- Xenoamorphous 2y ago
  I’m curious, how are those scammy? I always rent the car in advance and never had any issue, I’ve done that in Spain several times but only in the islands (Canary and Balearic).
  - oliwarner 2y ago
    They're thieves, hiding behind walls of small print. We booked one in France through Avis. Rocked up and they wanted either a €2000 refundable deposit or a €350 non-refundable waiver. We were deep into a home renovation, couldn't afford the refundable option if we also wanted food on holiday, had to take the hit. That's over the top of a €950 10 day rental for a 3 year old Seat, its gearbox nearing the end of its short cruel life. And we were treated like this because we'd used a reseller. The person before us didn't have our experience and the guy there was happy enough to explain how they hide details like this from comparison websites and everyone assumes they'll get the standard rental agreement. Loads of people get stung on the waiver.
    - drukenemo 2y ago
      This is almost to the letter what happened to me in Spain. What you described is real.
    - fy20 2y ago
      A deposit for car rental is normal. If you provide a credit card they reserve the amount without actually charging you. But if you only have a debit card or your credit limit is too low, they cannot do that. So you have to pay upfront, and they will refund you after the rental. I'm guessing the 'waiver' is for their enhanced insurance, which means you don't pay anything extra if there are any damages. I've rented hundreds of cars in Europe over the past two decades, and never had an issue. I booked through whatever site is the cheapest (which often is their own site, once you sign up for the loyalty programme). Never took the extras they try to sell. Car seats are carried by airlines for free (even Ryanair), so you don't need to pay for those.
JansjoFromIkea 2y ago
My very selfish reason for becoming pro cabin bag charges is how much quicker it has made boarding planes. The way people took the piss with the bags they brought on board before was ridiculous and resulted in a big delay of people trying to find space for their oversized bags of stuff they absolutely don't need for their weekend trip.
- ghaff 2y ago
  I've been a bit skeptical of this theory. It's not really true of budget airlines but business travelers and frequent flyers with status just don't want to check bags because it takes longer and can have complications with flight changes. Personally, I rarely check bags (mostly if I need checked for outdoor activities) but the money has basically nothing to do with it.
  - JansjoFromIkea 2y ago
    Sorry I wasn't even thinking about non-budget airlines when I commented. I was talking about budget airlines (Ryanair, specifically) with my comment
    - ghaff 2y ago
      Fair enough. I've never taken one of those airlines.
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  People started doing it in part because the airlines were taking outrageous times to get bags. Ironically, that’s been very much improved. With Delta and Alaska now, it’s actually quite rare that I get to baggage claim and my bags are not already there.
  - nico 2y ago
    True. Recently flew Alaska. They announced on speaker that if your bag didn’t come out within a certain time (I think it was 20min), you were entitled to some compensation or even the refund of the flight
nickjj 2y ago
I'm surprised they didn't mention TAP Air Portugal which routinely flies from Portugal to Spain using standard sized planes. They also have a number of international flights from the US to Portugal. Their hand bag requirement is substantially smaller than most other airlines. It's 16" x 12" x 6" (40cm x 30cm x 15cm) with a 4.4 lb (2 kg) max weight. That depth 6" / 15cm measurement is substantially smaller than most other airlines as well as the weight. Most other airlines have 2-3" (~5cm) more in depth and allow triple the weight. It makes a noticeable difference if you plan a trip with 2 backpacks. If you happen to need to check it at the gate, they charge $80-$220 USD depending on where you're coming from and going to.
aeurielesn 2y ago
> The government investigation also looked at concerns around a lack of transparency by the airlines over the final price of services when booking online, and the decision to block cash payments at the airport for additional services. I just went through this a week ago and I was shocked RyanAir was doing this as I was sure this was not legal in the EU.
jmclnx 2y ago
I am slight surprised over this, but seems to follow what the US Does with these fines. If it was up to me, all passengers for say the past 7 years will get a full refund of all their baggage fees + 100 EUR + 10% interest compounded per year.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > all passengers for say the past 7 years will get a full refund of all their baggage fees + 100 EUR + 10% interest compounded per year Congratulations, you have an airline monopoly because everyone went bankrupt or became so imperilled they had to merge to survive.
- dylan604 2y ago
  This is what I came to comment about as well. In other words, it's just a tax without going to the legislature to implement the tax. It will only be levied when someone decides it's time to levy it again, so it's somewhat convenient. The government didn't pay those heinous fees, yet they end up with the money? Like seriously, who does that make sense to other than corrupt bureaucrats? The obvious thing would be as you suggest to refund fees directly to those that were charged. Maybe then levy a fine on top of those refunds as a punishment that goes to the government just to add salt to the wound.
Tenoke 2y ago
I just flew with Ryanair and yes, the fees for luggage etc are expensive, but if you don't take luggage and any extras they offer, they are amazing value. I hope the cheap airlines don't get overrun with fines because if not for them I'd barely see my parents.
madjam002 2y ago
I've flown a lot with Ryanair, Easyjet and Wizz Air, and apart from Wizz Air adding mysterious a "System surcharge" if you use an ad blocker (although I think they've stopped doing this), I don't mind the extra charges at all. Surely if they ban cabin bag and seat charges, then the base fare is just going to go up for everyone? Memes and jokes aside, I actually find Ryanair to be a better service a lot of the time compared to Easyjet and more transparent with pricing, even though Easyjet is almost always more expensive on the routes I fly.
- throwaway22032 2y ago
  I don't mind the extra charges but I question whether removing the fines associated with them would result in an increase in base fare. If they just universally enforced that all oversize bags paid the £15 or whatever priority fee, instead of some people just getting unlucky because they didn't bring a tape measure on holiday and are 3cm over, I think it could even be net positive revenue wise.
throwaway22032 2y ago
It would be much better if they just had a streamlined process for charging for larger bags at the airport, and if the fee were roughly the same whether done in advance or not. As it stands, forgetting that Wizz Air requires bags 6cm smaller than easyJet and then getting told you can either pay more than your ticket cost originally or go home, but only sometimes if you get "caught", is just a bit... I dunno, uncivilized, I guess? If you make it say, £15 in advance, £20 at the airport, that is enough to encourage people to do it in advance as long as bags are all checked, you don't need to be punitive.
Euphorbium 2y ago
If all the countries in EU did that, it would matter. Now it is just a drop in a bucket.
ph1lw 2y ago
This would be a good moment to raise the taxes for airlines to have it aligned with rail travel. Demand goes down and they will adjust their additional charges.
padf 2y ago
The taxes are 'abusive' because they are sometimes very carefully "hidden". Ryan Air is wonderful compared to the nightmare called WizzAir. The issues with WizzAir: -Administrative fees of 9 Euro on each flight, for each passenger. -Trolley bag (10 kg) an extra of around 60 Euros. -Want have the same fare for 48 hours? Pay an extra 12 Euros. -After that, checked in bag, is around 40 Euros per flight. -Check in at the airport costs around 40 Euros. -Online check in costs 5 Euros, and the say they mail you the tickets two days before. -They don't mail you the tickets and they don't say anywhere you can only print the tickets on the same day of the flight (atrocious if the flight is at 6 am). -You can get a refund for a cancelled flight, but the refund link cannot be found on their site. You have a post on Trip Advisor that points to that site. -If you have paid for a small check in bag (10 kg) but bring that bag to the plane that's an extra 58 Euros (I can live with that). -The boarding queue may stop for around 15 minutes, because a client needs to pay 58+58 Euros and the boarding attendant is unable to calculate such a complicated mathematical operation, needing the intervention of another boarding attendant (busy). That is a big no NO! -Of course the web site has "bugs" and you may encounter "issues" that may force you to restart your session, specifically when asking for a refund... -The "bugs" do not depend on the browser, or the OS (tested on Windows, OSX and Linux).

72 points by cpncrunch 2y ago

I agree that the 20E charge to print a paper ticket seems excessive, but I'm not sure about the bag fees. I know it's a bit annoying to get nickle and dimed for everything, but on the other hand it makes sense to only charge passengers for the services they need.

kyriakos 2y ago
It's about carry on bag not checked in luggage though.
- marcinzm 2y ago
  It still costs fuel to carry the weight and slows down the boarding/un-boarding process. Especially if overhead bins fill up and bags need to be, chaotically, checked in at the gate since then you also need more gate attendants. Some passengers don't need anything more than the personal under seat bag for their trip. So charging for carry on bags is a logical approach if you wish to minimize the operating costs of the airline which budget airlines do.
  - Detrytus 2y ago
    Planes are typically used for longer trips though, not for getting an ice-cream from the stand around the corner. It is reasonable to expect some baggage allowance, the whole trip rarely makes sense without it. Charging for carry-on bags is almost like charging you for the air you breathe. It is abusive, because it's basically lying about the real cost of the ticket.
    - ApolloFortyNine 2y ago
      I haven't checked a bag or brought a non personal item carry on in 8 years. You can easily fit 4 sets of clothes, a jacket, etc. >It is abusive, because it's basically lying about the real cost of the ticket. In the US every airline that does this makes it comically clear. Spirit, the one people always make fun of for nickel and diming, has multiple screens before you book telling you that it'll cost extra for bags. Every other airline does similar. Yes queue the 'but I have 9 children' posts, obviously then you need to pay a bag fee.
    - arp242 2y ago
      RyanAir most does fairly short trips (1-2 hours), and tons of people do weekend returns and such. You don't need checked baggage for anything less than a week. I've seen tons of people with 3 bags, huge bags, and things like that. Frustratingly, this mostly affects people like me who don't do that, because I'll be the one asked to put my relatively small backpack under the seat because they're out of space, and being close to 2 metres it's not like I have tons of space to start with. Never too happy about that. I haven't flown in a while, but generally RyanAir has been pretty relaxed about this, probably because it's just not worth the hassle and all of that. But seriously, fuck these people and fuck their fucking bags and I don't blame RyanAir for placing some incentives to stop the excesses.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
  - AshamedCaptain 2y ago
    My understand of the 1960's Spanish law which applies here is that the volume of luggage that is accepted as carry-on is fixed by the aircraft manufacturer (e.g. size of the overhead bins), and not the airline: the airline cannot arbitrarily decide the max volume of carry-on that passengers are allowed to bring (and worse, cannot selectively enforce a different limit for different passengers). I can clearly see the slippery slope if rules like this were not be enforced.
    - marcinzm 2y ago
      In my experience the overhead bins are never large enough to accommodate everyone having the allowed sized carry on luggage. Which leads to bags getting gate checked fairly often.
  - nickjj 2y ago
    > It still costs fuel to carry the weight and slows down the boarding/un-boarding process. This is true but if we want to play the pure fairness game should someone who is 150 pounds pay less than someone who is 200 pounds? What about a 90 pound kid? These are drastic differences in weight and all 3 humans would likely fit in the dimensions of 1 standard economy seat. Arbitrarily charging upwards of $200 USD to check a bag at the gate because your carry on personal item was 0.5 pounds too heavy doesn't seem reasonable. A lot of consumer grade scales aren't even accurate to half a pound, you may have done the work to measure it and be wrong because you don't have a high precision scale that's as accurate as the industrial scale at the airport.
lxgr 2y ago
20€ seems almost reasonable – I think I’ve seen Ryanair charge far more than 100 at some point.
- gpm 2y ago
  100€ for a... piece of paper!?
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > 100€ for a... piece of paper!? For having a person who could be helping someone with real issues print a piece of paper instead, yes.
    - lxgr 2y ago
      I'd be more sympathetic to that view if Ryanair didn't - Prohibit showing the QR code from a PDF on your phone (it has to be printed on physical paper, or you have to use the app instead) - Make it intentionally hard/impossible to get your boarding pass bought from a third-party reseller into their first-party app In other words, my "non-real issue" was entirely manufactured by Ryanair to extract more money from me (by frustrating third-party resellers without outright banning them in a way that makes them prone to competitive lawsuits)
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        To be clear, those are problems. But a fee for a boarding-pass print only exceeding the cost of the paper it’s printed on is totally reasonable.
    - gpm 2y ago
      How much do you have to pay to get to the point where 100€ would be anything remotely close to the actual costs? If your support person is literally doing nothing 59/60ths of the time (because they're waiting around for someone to help), and it takes a whole minute to print a ticket... you're still at 100€/hour. This doesn't seem like it can be anything but ripping people off for making a mistake, or as charitably as I can possibly get making people who made a mistake subsidize flights for the more meticulous people in an attempt to make tickets (appear to) cost less to get more business.
m463 2y ago
I think paper tickets should be always be free. A better approach would be to offer an incentive for tickets on your phone (as long as it wasn't a data grab)
Tenoke 2y ago
Just checkin for free on your phone and use your phone as a ticket. I fly with Ryanair often enough and honestly wasn't even aware there's still a fee like that.
- anonzzzies 2y ago
  As other said here; if you book via a 3rd party and you have very little experience (you are a holiday traveller), you don’t know that you have to or how to login to the Ryanair site as they don’t tell you. So when you arrive at the airport you have a nice expensive surprise for the family.

TacticalCoder 2y ago

Spain could also look into fining all these scammy car rental agencies that operate at or near airport. They are totally abusive and should be not just fined but fined to death. It's these kind of things, as in TFA, that makes life miserable for tourists.

Xenoamorphous 2y ago
I’m curious, how are those scammy? I always rent the car in advance and never had any issue, I’ve done that in Spain several times but only in the islands (Canary and Balearic).
- oliwarner 2y ago
  They're thieves, hiding behind walls of small print. We booked one in France through Avis. Rocked up and they wanted either a €2000 refundable deposit or a €350 non-refundable waiver. We were deep into a home renovation, couldn't afford the refundable option if we also wanted food on holiday, had to take the hit. That's over the top of a €950 10 day rental for a 3 year old Seat, its gearbox nearing the end of its short cruel life. And we were treated like this because we'd used a reseller. The person before us didn't have our experience and the guy there was happy enough to explain how they hide details like this from comparison websites and everyone assumes they'll get the standard rental agreement. Loads of people get stung on the waiver.
  - drukenemo 2y ago
    This is almost to the letter what happened to me in Spain. What you described is real.
  - fy20 2y ago
    A deposit for car rental is normal. If you provide a credit card they reserve the amount without actually charging you. But if you only have a debit card or your credit limit is too low, they cannot do that. So you have to pay upfront, and they will refund you after the rental. I'm guessing the 'waiver' is for their enhanced insurance, which means you don't pay anything extra if there are any damages. I've rented hundreds of cars in Europe over the past two decades, and never had an issue. I booked through whatever site is the cheapest (which often is their own site, once you sign up for the loyalty programme). Never took the extras they try to sell. Car seats are carried by airlines for free (even Ryanair), so you don't need to pay for those.

JansjoFromIkea 2y ago

My very selfish reason for becoming pro cabin bag charges is how much quicker it has made boarding planes. The way people took the piss with the bags they brought on board before was ridiculous and resulted in a big delay of people trying to find space for their oversized bags of stuff they absolutely don't need for their weekend trip.

ghaff 2y ago
I've been a bit skeptical of this theory. It's not really true of budget airlines but business travelers and frequent flyers with status just don't want to check bags because it takes longer and can have complications with flight changes. Personally, I rarely check bags (mostly if I need checked for outdoor activities) but the money has basically nothing to do with it.
- JansjoFromIkea 2y ago
  Sorry I wasn't even thinking about non-budget airlines when I commented. I was talking about budget airlines (Ryanair, specifically) with my comment
  - ghaff 2y ago
    Fair enough. I've never taken one of those airlines.
FireBeyond 2y ago
People started doing it in part because the airlines were taking outrageous times to get bags. Ironically, that’s been very much improved. With Delta and Alaska now, it’s actually quite rare that I get to baggage claim and my bags are not already there.
- nico 2y ago
  True. Recently flew Alaska. They announced on speaker that if your bag didn’t come out within a certain time (I think it was 20min), you were entitled to some compensation or even the refund of the flight

nickjj 2y ago

I'm surprised they didn't mention TAP Air Portugal which routinely flies from Portugal to Spain using standard sized planes. They also have a number of international flights from the US to Portugal. Their hand bag requirement is substantially smaller than most other airlines. It's 16" x 12" x 6" (40cm x 30cm x 15cm) with a 4.4 lb (2 kg) max weight. That depth 6" / 15cm measurement is substantially smaller than most other airlines as well as the weight. Most other airlines have 2-3" (~5cm) more in depth and allow triple the weight. It makes a noticeable difference if you plan a trip with 2 backpacks. If you happen to need to check it at the gate, they charge $80-$220 USD depending on where you're coming from and going to.

aeurielesn 2y ago

> The government investigation also looked at concerns around a lack of transparency by the airlines over the final price of services when booking online, and the decision to block cash payments at the airport for additional services. I just went through this a week ago and I was shocked RyanAir was doing this as I was sure this was not legal in the EU.

jmclnx 2y ago

I am slight surprised over this, but seems to follow what the US Does with these fines. If it was up to me, all passengers for say the past 7 years will get a full refund of all their baggage fees + 100 EUR + 10% interest compounded per year.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> all passengers for say the past 7 years will get a full refund of all their baggage fees + 100 EUR + 10% interest compounded per year Congratulations, you have an airline monopoly because everyone went bankrupt or became so imperilled they had to merge to survive.
dylan604 2y ago
This is what I came to comment about as well. In other words, it's just a tax without going to the legislature to implement the tax. It will only be levied when someone decides it's time to levy it again, so it's somewhat convenient. The government didn't pay those heinous fees, yet they end up with the money? Like seriously, who does that make sense to other than corrupt bureaucrats? The obvious thing would be as you suggest to refund fees directly to those that were charged. Maybe then levy a fine on top of those refunds as a punishment that goes to the government just to add salt to the wound.

Tenoke 2y ago

I just flew with Ryanair and yes, the fees for luggage etc are expensive, but if you don't take luggage and any extras they offer, they are amazing value. I hope the cheap airlines don't get overrun with fines because if not for them I'd barely see my parents.

madjam002 2y ago

I've flown a lot with Ryanair, Easyjet and Wizz Air, and apart from Wizz Air adding mysterious a "System surcharge" if you use an ad blocker (although I think they've stopped doing this), I don't mind the extra charges at all. Surely if they ban cabin bag and seat charges, then the base fare is just going to go up for everyone? Memes and jokes aside, I actually find Ryanair to be a better service a lot of the time compared to Easyjet and more transparent with pricing, even though Easyjet is almost always more expensive on the routes I fly.

throwaway22032 2y ago
I don't mind the extra charges but I question whether removing the fines associated with them would result in an increase in base fare. If they just universally enforced that all oversize bags paid the £15 or whatever priority fee, instead of some people just getting unlucky because they didn't bring a tape measure on holiday and are 3cm over, I think it could even be net positive revenue wise.

throwaway22032 2y ago

It would be much better if they just had a streamlined process for charging for larger bags at the airport, and if the fee were roughly the same whether done in advance or not. As it stands, forgetting that Wizz Air requires bags 6cm smaller than easyJet and then getting told you can either pay more than your ticket cost originally or go home, but only sometimes if you get "caught", is just a bit... I dunno, uncivilized, I guess? If you make it say, £15 in advance, £20 at the airport, that is enough to encourage people to do it in advance as long as bags are all checked, you don't need to be punitive.

Euphorbium 2y ago

If all the countries in EU did that, it would matter. Now it is just a drop in a bucket.

ph1lw 2y ago

This would be a good moment to raise the taxes for airlines to have it aligned with rail travel. Demand goes down and they will adjust their additional charges.

padf 2y ago

The taxes are 'abusive' because they are sometimes very carefully "hidden". Ryan Air is wonderful compared to the nightmare called WizzAir. The issues with WizzAir: -Administrative fees of 9 Euro on each flight, for each passenger. -Trolley bag (10 kg) an extra of around 60 Euros. -Want have the same fare for 48 hours? Pay an extra 12 Euros. -After that, checked in bag, is around 40 Euros per flight. -Check in at the airport costs around 40 Euros. -Online check in costs 5 Euros, and the say they mail you the tickets two days before. -They don't mail you the tickets and they don't say anywhere you can only print the tickets on the same day of the flight (atrocious if the flight is at 6 am). -You can get a refund for a cancelled flight, but the refund link cannot be found on their site. You have a post on Trip Advisor that points to that site. -If you have paid for a small check in bag (10 kg) but bring that bag to the plane that's an extra 58 Euros (I can live with that). -The boarding queue may stop for around 15 minutes, because a client needs to pay 58+58 Euros and the boarding attendant is unable to calculate such a complicated mathematical operation, needing the intervention of another boarding attendant (busy). That is a big no NO! -Of course the web site has "bugs" and you may encounter "issues" that may force you to restart your session, specifically when asking for a refund... -The "bugs" do not depend on the browser, or the OS (tested on Windows, OSX and Linux).