I could see Ryan Air charging for gate check even when it's not your choice and the bag is of appropriate carry-on size. That's their niche, sell you a cheap ti

I could see Ryan Air charging for gate check even when it's not your choice and the bag is of appropriate carry-on size. That's their niche, sell you a cheap ticket then charge you for everything else they can along the way. In my experience generally it's a combination of oversold flights and increased seat counts. Seat width and legroom length changes allow more seats to get crammed into the plane. You have more people, but the amount of overhead bin space doesn't change with it. With oversold flights it's very common for nearly all seats to be occupied. The net result is the overhead bins almost always fill up before everyone has boarded, at which point they start gate checking everyone's carry-on bags. When this has happened to me on major carriers, I have not been charged. It's still annoying. Particularly when I've packed light to fit everything in a carry-on and avoid checked baggage altogether.