UKC

As Ryanair are now putting all bags in the hold unless you pay a fee to have it in the cabin, can I assume it's now ok to put quickdraws, krabs, pulleys and a rope in my usual cabin-size bag, thus avoiding paying for a 20kg large bag allowance? Presumably the bag is now whisked away to the hold before security anyway now. 

In reply to mark catcher:

Not so fast, buster!

The reason for the new system is so that Ryanair no longer needs to pay for baggage handling on departure - only on arrival - as it will use its own staff to load the excess hand luggage. However, they only take your bag from the gate, not from the bag-drop desk, so you still need to get it through security, with all the random uncertainty that entails.

I actually think it's an improvement, as it means you can still keep valuables with you in a small bag, you can sit comfortably until the end of boarding without having to queue or worry about jostling for overhead locker space, and you still don't have to pay for a hold bag. The only downside is a 5-minute wait for bags to arrive on the carousel.

In reply to mark catcher:

No

My interpretation is that it taken at the gate AFTER security.

https://www.ryanair.com/gb/en/plan-trip/flying-with-us/baggage-policy

"If you have not purchased Priority & 2 Cabin Bags, you are only permitted to bring 1 small bag on board. Your second 10kg bag will be tagged at the gate and put into the hold free of charge. "

 

In reply to mark catcher:

The info I was given says the bag is taken off you at the gate, neatly avoiding the dedicated baggage handling facilities at check in. So you have to go through security, and security can’t take your word for it that it will be gate checked, because it might be swapped with another bag.

It is as if they were making the lowest price option deliberately awkward. Surely they wouldn’t do that, would they?

 

In reply to elsewhere:

As usual it’s the confusion between the operator and the security rules that are in place for each country/ airport. 

Goid luck getting ropes through security just don’t bank on it being the same everywhere. 

And if you don’t like Ryanair there are plenty of other options available. I’m quite sure that BA business class will afford you a more than generous “free” baggage allowance.  

In reply to Tim Davies:

That's it -  no changes in terms of security

In reply to john arran: Thanks for the info John. So there's no way round it, surprise, surprise. Personally, I just feel aggrieved that I have to pay an extra £50 to £80 to take an extra bag containing a rope and some draws just in case I may tie up the pilot, and rapidly clip the cabin crews hands behind their backs. Surely it must be cheaper to post the rack to Catalunya?

 

In reply to mark catcher:

I just got blagged out of an extra tenner by not reading thoroughly the terms and conditions. It's phrased so that on a quick read you think " shit I can only take one small bag unless I pay for hold luggage" "Ahh well stump up the extra £5 at least it's cheaper than hold luggage". As I don't give a toss if my bag goes in the hold even if it's a15min wait to collect it next time no priority £5 ransom. On reflection not a bad idea if it cuts down overhead locker faffers who delay boarding.

In reply to Tim Davies:

BA currently offer unlimited weight on cabin luggage (caveat is that you have to lift it into overhead bins yourself), and have done for quite a while.

In reply to Jon Read: It's not the weight Jon, it's the contents unfortunately.

 

It doesn't sound very practical - cabin staff scrabbling around in the cold and wet to load fifty cabin bags into the hold after the baggage handlers have done the checked-in stuff. Has anybody seen how it is actually done?

In reply to elsewhere:

Probably just like it´s always been done with push-chairs, prams, wheelchairs and the other stuff, a guy in grubby overalls appears through a door at the end of the airbridge and takes it away.

In reply to elsewhere:

Yep, it works very well, your bag is taken off you just before you board and it goes in hold. Very efficient system at Liverpool a couple of weeks ago. You then collect it the other end off the carousel.  As someone else said it saves the faffers of this world trying to cram too much cabin baggage in the overhead lockers. You can slag off Ryanair all you want but their flights are still really cheap if you book early and play their little games. I've really not got a problem with that.

In reply to Dave Ferguson & jimtitt:

Good to know as Ryanair have opened up a new route that's perfect for us.

In reply to elsewhere:

Just flew back from Lisbon on Ryanair. Check in staff walk down the line before boarding tagging the bags of the 'non priority' plebs and the tagged bags are left at the bottom of the steps for loading.

Does seem to simplify boarding a bit, although a lot of people seemed happy to stump up the money to carry their bags on board.

Couple of things. 4 of us were travelling with 'proper' cabin bag dimension rucksacks, (not f***ing huge TNF duffels etc). We had money, electronics etc in a small bag inside the rucksacks to take out before boarding.

Even though we hadn't paid the extra:

a. We only had one bag each;

b. They weren't oversize;

c. They hate rucksacks and dangling straps on conveyors.

We were ignored by the lady with the tags and allowed to board with the bags on the way out.

On the return flight we were asked 'Just the one bag each?'. When we said yes we were asked to put them under the seats, (they wouldn't have fit), and again allowed to take them on as cabin baggage.

I did notice someone with a small shoulder bag  plus a rucksack further down the line getting the rucksack tagged as hold baggage though.

 

what is this BA of which you speak... Is that the one known to the rest of the country as London Airlines?

complete f*cking irrelevance to most of the country. I think 4 of the last 250 flights I've taken have been BA.

well today in Frankfurt it involve everyone piling their luggage up in a tottering heap in the wet slushy snow and the getting on the plane. 

picked it up at Manc again.

nearly all the overhead lockers on the plane were either empty or nearly empty. Bit of a pain in the arse really. 

having said which, as posted above they nearly always target wheely bags so this is the first time out of about 8 flights that we've had our soft luggage taken

 

The other way of avoiding it is to hang back and be the last to board. They'll usually have fulfilled their quota of manual hold luggage by that point.

In reply to john arran:

Agree totally. I will take the option every time I'm offered it in future.

In reply to freelunchprovider:

 

That's not my definition of being blagged.

 

In reply to Tom Valentine:

To be fair, when they introduced it, the description was pretty cryptic, and seemed to me to be deliberately written so as to mislead people into thinking they needed to pay more to get any hand luggage more than a tiny bag to their destination, when it only technically applied to keeping bags on board with them. They've clarified it online since and it's now much more reasonably worded.

Edit: typo

In reply to john arran: Avoiding loss, damage, theft and queuing are all valid reasons for wanting to travel light and keep luggage with you. The number getting lost has come down in recent years, as people have checked in less bags. Even so European airlines still mislay over 8 bags per thousand passengers. For a party of two that equates to around 1.6% chance of losing a bag on the outward journey. Even if eventually recovered it can really mess up the trip, if you are one of the unlucky ones.

In reply to matthew:

All of which is a perfectly reasonable concern. However:

1. Those figures sound like they will be much higher than will be relevant for a typical Ryanair flight. For one, there's never a connecting flight, which I presume is where the bulk of the missing bags go missing. Also, there's pretty much no chance the bag won't get on the same flight as you're on, so it's hard to see how it can be routed elsewhere. Granted, you still have a risk of theft by baggage handlers, albeit only at the arrival airport. Personally, I doubt that baggage risks are even in the same order of magnitude as 1.6%, given all of the above;
2. You still have the option of preventing even this small chance of loss by paying a few quid extra.

Personally, having had several checked-in bags go missing or delayed over the years, I still don't see a significant risk of this with Ryanair hand-luggage.

In reply to mark catcher:

Why bother? Ryanair is not a serious airline anyway.

re. Cabin crew scrabbling in the cold & wet I once was made to stand with another 150 or so people on the tarmac, in a gale, while said cabin crew finished cleanup in the plane, while one plane was refuelled on one side of us and another taxi’d in a few feet behind us. 

Dont know what the CAA would have made of that.

and that was before they decided to wipe out all Scotland - England routes for 4 months

never again

In reply to mark catcher:

Well in just over 500 x flights in various parts of the world over the last 15 years or so then I've had my hold baggage go missing twice - so that correlates to a 0.4% chance of missing hold luggage in my experience.

The first loss was on a homebound BA flight from Hong Kong, transferring through Heathrow to Manchester.  This bag was returned to me around 3 days after arrival.  To be fair to BA it was at the same period the whole 'shoe bomber' thing kicked off meaning long delays and baggage issues at many airports, Heathrow in particular.

The second loss was on a morning transfer through Amsterdam Schipol on a KLM flight from Manchester to Gothenburg.  My luggage failed to arrive (held up at Amsterdam), but was with me at the hotel by the same evening.

So no actual loss as such in both cases, just delays really and both on connecting flights through a hub - never point to point.  Both were stressful but also maybe I've been lucky?  Touches wood.

In reply to mark catcher:

Why do you consider it 'extra' and not just part of the price of the trip ? personally I'm pretty sure I couldn't get all my climbing kit in the 10kg cabin baggage weight limit in any case.  One 25kg bag between two people always seems to be about right.

In reply to colinakmc:

I could not agree more and while you can have big problems on any airline, I have learned to avoid cheapo airlines because to me it is just not worth the aggravation. Others disagree with me of course

In reply to profitofdoom:

Do you and colinakmc live near London by any chance?

In reply to TheGeneralist:

No, up North. KLM fly from all over the place up here - I like them - and Cathay Pacific daily from Manchester

In reply to The Generalist:

Scotland. I wanted to get down to London on a Saturday morning and the only flight that would have worked was a Ryanair one. Booked, paid, booked Gatwick Express (non refundable) - then Ryanair just dumped 3 months' worth of flights in preference for more profitable routes, presumably. Refunded my flights and sent me a (worthless) voucher. Couldn't care less and I have no recourse for my other losses. Hence my observation that they're not a serious airline.

In reply to colinakmc:

Neither are BMI in that case - they've just canned the Munich - Southampton route. What's even worse is they haven't actually told their customers with tickets on those flights!

In reply to colinakmc:

Thanks. But can you work out why TheGeneralist asked you & I if we live near London? Mystifies me or maybe I am thick

In reply to profitofdoom:

Can't recall who, but one of you expressed the view that ' non flag' airlines ( sorry, can't bring myself to use that ridiculously innaccurate term 'budget airlines') were useless and that you never use them. 

I struggle to see how anyone based outside the southeast could do any quick foreign climbing trips without using budget airlines.

 

In reply to me:

Note my two key assumptions.

Quick trips

Climbing.

 

Obviously if you're doing long haul or have loads of time then KLMAF or Luft are eminently feasible.

 

But just to nail my colours firmly to the mast, the budget airlines  have been generally f*cking excellent for the bits of UK outside London.

 

In reply to matthew:

I don't think that's how you calculate probability... 8 in 1000 chance x 8 in 1000 chance = 64 in 1 million = 1 in 15625 = 0.0064% chance of losing 2 bags independently :-D 

In reply to The Norris:

He said losing a bag, not two bags.

In reply to elsewhere:

Then for one bag the probability remains at 8 in 1000, but with twice the amount of irritation! 

In reply to The Norris:

He didn't say for one bag though. He said a bag for a party of  two travellers.

In reply to TheGeneralist:

I'm in the SE (Cambridge) and Ryan Air and Easyjet have been pretty much my staple short haul airlines.  To be honest I've found them more dependable than supposedly 'proper' airlines for actually getting flights away.

I don't try to take the piss though - its pretty easy to stay within baggage limits especially if flying with a climbing partner and its still ridiculously cheap.  Cheaper than airport parking sometimes which is ridiculous.

In reply to mark catcher:

On many routes the only indication that you haven't payed for hold luggage is the ID tag placed at gate control (particularly coming back to the UK). Those of a less scrupulous nature will note that such tags easily go missing between there and the plane steps, allowing the bag to be carried on. Also works well when you are late to join the queue for a full plane and the crew decide to start checking hand luggage into the hold. 

In reply to Toccata:

They usually cross reference with your boarding pass, so take a second boarding pass without the handler's scribble on it to show at the aircraft door.

 

If you can be arsed...

In reply to TheGeneralist:

I think my point is that there are budget airlines and then there's Ryanair. See my earlier comments also about being marched out of the terminal to wait on the tarmac for the plane to be ready. Didn't even feel safe.

In reply to The Norris:

But they were calculating the probability of losing at least on bag and did so correctly to a very good approximation.

 

In reply to TheGeneralist:

That was me but I never said they are useless. I said "I have learned to avoid cheapo airlines because to me it is just not worth the aggravation" which is a very different thing

In reply to profitofdoom:

Ok. Leaving aside the useless bit, I'm still intrigued how one can do short foreign climbing trips from "northwest" UK without using budget airlines.

In reply to TheGeneralist:

If by 'short', you mean a weekend, then yes direct flights are always going to prove more compatible with a limited timetable. If you are spending a day to travel, then getting a connecting flight to LHR or other hub doesn't add that much time, in my experience (+2 hours departing MAN to connect through LHR, rather than departing LHR, depending on conformance time). The way the airline system is set up means you will have to pass through a hub sooner or later making any reasonable distance trip, unfortunately.

In reply to TheGeneralist:

KLM, as I said, here is their route map for Europe

http://www.airlineroutemaps.com/maps/KLM_europe

In reply to TheGeneralist:

& Northern Star ...

Well in just over 500 x flights in various parts of the world over the last 15 years or so.....

What about that global warming thing...?

No doubt plenty people have flown as much or more... do you really need to ? I suppose many of your flights are work related rather than holiday, if you fly that often?

I find climbing indoors over winter plenty of fun...

If money was no object, like it may seem to be if u can make so many trips, perhaps I'd get away more too, I don't know...  but I hope no where near that often.

Just turned 50, been on the plane once.

In reply to Fakey Rocks:

500 flights in 15 years is nothing, one of my buddies flies at least 600 times a year (commuting to work) and in parts of the USA the school "bus" is a airplane.

In reply to jimtitt:

If you put it like that, your right, but it's still a lot. 5 flights a year seems a lot to me though.  These people could live near where they work, couldn't they.? 1 flight a year would seem OK for me,  2...  an unnecessary luxury. 

I think i'll get the train / coach / bus / van / taxi to Chulilla or wherever, but i'm not hitching that far, no thanks.

In reply to jimtitt:

Our daughter had been on 50 planes by the time she was one, and she didn't have a passport until she was 5 months old! Probably not typical, but by no means an outlier nowadays.