Budget airline Ryanair has confirmed that it will pay its employees extra money if they find passengers with oversized luggage, from which the company collects additional money.

“We pay a commission to our staff who identify and charge for oversized baggage, but these fees are paid by less than 0.1 percent of passengers who do not follow our agreed baggage rules,” a Ryanair representative commented.

“Our message to those 0.1 percent of passengers is simple: please follow our generous baggage rules or you will be charged at check-in or at the gate. To the 99.9 percent of our passengers who follow our rules, we say thank you and keep flying because you have nothing to worry about,” the company added.

Ryanair allows customers to take a small bag measuring 40 x 20 x 25 cm for free, which can fit under the seat in front of them. A larger piece of hand luggage weighing up to 10kgs, measuring 55 x 40 x 20 cm, is subject to an additional charge, with prices starting at six euros but reaching several tens of euros.

EU regulations on small hand luggage

In early July, Ryanair announced that it would increase its free hand luggage size to 40 x 30 x 20 centimetres, in accordance with new, yet to enter into force European Union regulations that prohibit airlines from charging for small hand luggage.

The announcement follows revelations recently that staff at Swissport, which operates at seven UK airports, will receive an extra £1.20 for each oversized bag caught at the gate. The policy, referred to in a leaked email to Swissport staff as the “easyJet gate bag revenue incentive”, has been in place since at least November 2023.

A statement explaining Ryanair’s policy, issued this weekend, contradicts comments from the company’s marketing manager, Dara Brady, who said staff were not paid a commission for identifying oversized bags.

“We don’t pay our staff a commission for bags. The policy is to limit the number of bags we can take on board,” he told Irish publication Virgin Media News in April. “We can only take a limited number of bags on board, so our staff need to be very aware of the size of the bags they can take. I repeat, there has been no change to Ryanair’s baggage policy and if people are travelling with the right size bags, you will have a great flight with Ryanair.”

However, financial incentives for staff to stop and charge passengers with oversized bags are not used everywhere in the aviation industry, The Times noted. Airline passenger and baggage ground handling company Sky Handling Partner and Irish airline Aer Lingus said they do not offer any incentives to their staff for enforcing baggage rules at the gate.

However, ground handling company DHL Supply Chain, which operates at Gatwick, Bristol and Manchester airports, also has a fee package for identifying bags that do not meet easyJet’s requirements.

Ryanair staff luggage bonus

Ryanair, the Irish budget airline pays staff about €1.50 (£1.30) for intercepting customers who are bringing oversized bags on to an aircraft. The bonus is capped at about €80 for each staff member a month, the Sunday Times newspaper recently reported, citing a payslip from a former employee which listed a “gate bag bonus”.

Passengers are charged a fee of up to €75 for bringing luggage that is larger than they paid for while booking their journey. Ryanair’s chief executive, Michael O’Leary, said on Monday that more than 99.9% of passengers comply with baggage rules, with “sizers” located within the airport.

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