Airlines slap an extra 30% on charges for hold luggage

Published on Sunday 13 December 2009 21:52

CHECKING luggage into the hold and using a credit card can add almost 30 per cent to the advertised price of budget airline tickets, consumer watchdogs say.

Researchers from Which? Holiday magazine compared luggage and payment method costs for low-fare carriers bmibaby, easyJet, Ryanair and Jet2 to four destinations – Paris, Rome, Malaga in Spain and Faro in Portugal.

They found the price of a flight to Paris with bmibaby increased by about 25 per cent when one piece of hold luggage was checked in and the ticket was booked using a credit card. The price of a flight to Malaga increased by 23 per cent.

Which? Holiday said Ryanair charged 50 extra across all its routes for checking in a hold bag and paying with a credit card – an increase of between 8 per cent and 29 per cent on the advertised cost of the fare. Although Jet2 was found to add the most to the 92.16 cost of a flight for the charges this was an increase of just 10 per cent on the advertised ticket price.

EasyJet consistently had the lowest luggage and card charges of the four airlines looked at, ranging from 26 to 38 extra. However, in one case (East Midlands to Faro) this still amounted to a 17 per cent increase on the advertised price.

Prices were for a three-night break between 11 and 16 February 2010.

Rochelle Turner, head of research for Which? Holiday, said: "It's hard to believe that any airline could justify increasing the ticket price by almost a third just for checking a bag into the hold and paying on a credit card – two services that not too long ago were included in the headline price.

"Airlines argue that they are being fairer to customers who don't use these services. But, in reality, how many people don't use a credit or debit card to pay for their flights, or travel without luggage? These aren't extra services. They are part and parcel of taking a flight."

Which? Holiday assistant editor Amanda Diamond said: "The Office of Fair Trading is conducting a market study of online pricing and advertising.

"Practices such as 'drip pricing' and 'baiting sales' – where companies advertise discounted products but have few available at the low price – will be scrutinised.

"We hope this will put an end to airlines enticing customers with promises of cheap flights that bear little resemblance to the final price paid.

"We plan to forward our findings to the OFT."

EasyJet spokesman Andrew McConnell said: "At easyJet, you only pay for the service you use.

"This enables us to offer low fares to everyone and only those who chose the voluntary extras are charged for those extras.

"Handling hold baggage does increase costs to the airline which is why we pass this on to the passengers. However, we have one of the most generous hand baggage policies in the industry, but if passengers still wish to put baggage in the hold, our rates are the lowest."

A Ryanair spokesman said: "Which? keep coming back to budget airlines because maybe they have got nothing better to do.

"All they have done is highlight how cheap it is to fly with us and if you bring a bag it is still cheap. So thanks very much to Holiday Which?"