Let's compare this business process for two airlines

British Airways - a premium legacy carrier

Ryanair - a low cost carrier and beneath contempt for many on this forum

Both airlines allow one larger sized bag and one smaller personal item.

A quick Value Stream Analysis shows that British Airways creates some wastes -

- material waste, by printing and using tags, when they are not required
- transport waste, by moving those tags to the point of use
- motion waste, by staff having to run after customers to tag the bags
- process waste, in running a process that is not required

Then there is the matter of annoying customers.

Ryanair has a simple rule; the aircraft can accommodate 90 bags of 55 x 40 x 20 cms and beyond this, bags will be stored in the hold, free. People who hold priority boarding, by virtue of buying allocated seating or priority boarding, will only have their baggage stored in the hold for 'operational reasons.' (This is a get out clause and means that normally priority boarding passengers will have their bags in the bins.)

There you have it, one complicated and wasteful process, versus one simple and lean process.

Both systems have the potential to annoy passengers, but in the case of Ryanair it will usually be people who have not paid ancillary charges for priority boarding or reserved seats (thus demonstrating a higher service level or a reduced pain level, depending on one's perspective, for people who paid the carrier more.) The system/rules are clear and easy to implement by the many different outsourced ground handling agents.

In the case of BA, some passengers will be annoyed needlessly, as the OP was, by being forced to participate in a process that is not applicable to them and which makes no sense for very good reasons (no under seat stowage in Club World.)

Just another data point to show how Ryanair's management are smarter than BA's and why the company has made a profit every year since 1991, whilst growing from small fry to an airline carrying nearly 90 milllion pax per annum.

Reference

http://www.ryanair.com/en/terms-and-...-cabinbaggage/