You think you’re adding a cheap cabin bag to your equally cheap flight, only to watch the final total shoot up. Suddenly, it’s not quite the low-cost trip you had planned.
If you’ve ever been in this situation, you’re officially not alone.
Following an extensive study, Which? has now claimed budget airlines like easyJet, Ryanair, and Wizz Air, have all been a little creative with their luggage pricing — and that the carriers ‘deserve to be called out’ over it.
In fact, the consumer watchdog has handed its findings to the Advertising Standards Authority for examination.
After analysing the cabin bag costs charged by the three airlines, it found their lowest advertised rates were not available in the vast majority of cases.
The investigation checked the cost of traelling with a bag designed to fit in an overhead locker on a total of nearly 1,500 easyJet, Ryanair and Wizz Air flights, spread over eight popular routes for each airline, including peak and off-peak dates.
Here’s how each airline fared…
easyJet cabin bags
easyJet’s website states it charges ‘from £5.99’ for a cabin bag, but Which? researchers were unable to find a price that low among the 520 flights it checked.
In fact, the cheapest option found was £23.49, while the average was £30, marking a whole £17.50 difference between the lowest price and the one customers are typically charged.
You could get nearly three cooked breakfasts at LEON in Heathrow Airport with that.
In response to the study, a spokesperson for easyJet said its bag options and pricing are ‘transparent and well understood by our customers’ and the airline allows passengers to ‘pay for only what they want’.
Ryanair cabin bags
When it came to Ryanair, the consumer watchdog found its lowest advertised cabin bag rate of £12 was only available for two out of 634 flights.
The average cost of a cabin bag with the Irish airline was £20.50, which £7.50 more than its cheapest price.
That’s the cost of your Costa hot drink to wake you up before your flight.
Ryanair said in a statement the number of flights analysed was ‘too small to be representative or accurate’, adding its cabin bag prices are ‘transparent and optional’.
In August, the airline said it planned to raise bonuses for staff who spot passengers attempting to take oversized bags on flights, from €1.50 (£1.31) to €2.50 (£2.18) per bag.
At the time, chief executive Michael O’Leary said he made ‘absolutely no apology’ for catching people ‘scamming the system’.
Wizz Air
Lastly, Wizz Air’s lowest stated cabin bag price at the time of the research was €15 (£13.11), but again, that cost was only found twice across theflights in Which?’s study.
Across 338 fares, the average cost of adding a cabin bag was £28.93 – that’s £15.82 more expensive than the lowest advertised price.
A Wizz Air spokesperson said its prices ‘vary by route, season and demand’, and insisted it is ‘fully compliant with consumer protection laws’.
What does Which? think of this ‘failure’?
The consumer watchdog said travelling with a bag that can fit in the overhead lockers is ‘likely to be considered an essential by many passengers’.
It claimed airlines’ ‘failure to provide transparent fees’ means consumers ‘don’t know what they are paying’ until they have gone through multiple stages of the booking process.
Rory Boland, editor of Which? Travel, said: ‘Our research shows that the tens of millions of passengers who need to take a cabin bag will pay much more than the cheapest price advertised.
‘Rather than a few pounds, prices for bags can often be more than the flight itself. The tactics used by these airlines deserve to be called out.
‘That’s why we have shared our findings with the regulator.’
