I agree that RyanAir's current bag policy is stupid. I recently flew them and saw a large majority of customers gate check their bags, as did I, to save the convenience fee. What kind of business spends extra money to create inconvenience for customers for the sole purpose of convincing some of them to pay extra to avoid the inconvenience?
Actually, for FR it speeds up the boarding process if more people check bags and people are not fighting for bin space. For them turn times are more important than anything - the extra revenue on top of that helps, obviously.
(Other than states which convert freeway lanes into toll lanes.)
That's actually a great idea - if your time is more valuable than the variable cost of the lane, then by all means go and pay it. If not, then wait in (less than before because now htere are people using the toll lanes) traffic. People hate it, but it works!
The overhead bins on my flights were more than half empty, illustrating the wastefulness of this policy.
Again - not really - they don't have to hire more ground handlers, but they can be sure that boarding will be fast when people don't have more carry-ons.
Also wasteful is the random seat assignment policy. Travelers were switching seats with each other all over the plane, delaying completion of boarding by at least 2 minutes.
Now that's a pure revenue generation strategy. The 2 minutes will have been offset by faster initi
To its credit, RyanAir realized that the current bag policy is stupid. They changed it. Good on them, although I will no longer be able to fly for the ultra-low sticker price as I did this year. When you get a round trip for 43 Euros, that 2-hour middle seat is very comfortable.
People vote with their feet
Data point: I saw a very relaxed attitude toward cabin baggage size and hand bag size, and no attention to weight for any bags passing through security. I imagine that contract labor performing these functions has no incentive to enforce those rules.
It's up to the station and the ground handler (which FR often does NOT outsource).