Quirky & crafty Ryanair

The Emerald Isle’s Rynair has figured out how to make a little more green. The carrier, which - to its credit - encourages traveling with carry-on only, limits flyers to only one bag of the typical international size (55x40x20 cm/ 22x16x8 inches at 10 kg/22 pounds).  Since this size of luggage is so difficult to find (not!) Ryanair will now sell you a Samsonite roller designed (so they say) exclusively for Ryanair. Humorous. Check this:

President of Samsonite Europe Fabio Rugarli, said, “Samsonite’s global expertise in producing innovative luggage to suit all travel occasions, made this project with Ryanair an appealing partnership. Our design and technology specialists responded to the brief, creating well-priced, practical and compact luggage to fit the absolute precise measurements of Ryanair’s hand luggage specifications. We know that there is nothing more reassuring than travelling to the airport with the knowledge that your hand luggage will fit into the aircraft cabin.”

*As this Samsonite bag is softsided, if over-packed it may not fit into Ryanair’s baggage sizers and in such cases Ryanair will require it to be carried as checked-in baggage. - link

That’s right, the bulgy soft-sided roller can easily exceed the size limit, thus incurring a checked charge. And how many poor souls will pack it to 25 pounds with the same result? Ryanair is all heart. If they’re going to sell a bag to encourage carry-on, no-fee travel shouldn’t it be about 2/3 of maximum carry-on size, sans wheels to save weight? As it is, they make money on their bogus bag, then they make money when it’s too heavy or too large!

Comments

[Alan Birnbaum]

Passing through Dallas Fort Worth Airport yesterday, I saw that Brookstone has a new bag, not yet on their website, $50, lighter weight nylon, probably 7 x 12 x 17, maybe a bit bigger than that, one main compartment, one smaller one, one sleeve pocket, carry handles, and probably a shoulder strap, hefted to maybe one pound, $50. Until they list it on the site, I can't confirm the details, but that's more like what one needs instead of a roller, and in fact, this is a bag suited for the stingiest of airlines that have the 7 kg weight limits.

Actually, my Air Boss reasonably loaded would be at 22 lbs. or under. Unreasonably loaded, as it was yesterday, returning from London, it was 30.6 lbs, NOT a carry-on weight for me.

[enecabe]

I'm using the FlyLITE units.

http://www.flylite.uk.com/

[Buzz]

Ryanair needs to make up for lost revenue. First, it was fined 3 million Euros for not taking care of its customers during the worst of the volcano, and the other day Germany announced Ryanair could no longer charge extra for using credit cards since there was no alternative.

Now it seems Ryanair is lining up with others to find new ways to charge the customer. I tried to find this piece of luggage but couldn't in the shopping section of Ryanair.

And let's face it, even here, there are a lot of people who just don't get this one-bag, carry-on idea. They still over pack.

[Alan Birnbaum]

The small size FlyLite bag, 550 grams,basically $29 mailed to the US, looks a LOT like the bag that Brookstone was selling for US$50...not hard to see what's the BETTER buy!

[Monte]

Ryanair have always been cheep, cheep, cheep. The first several times we flew from Glasgow to Islay Ryanair was still flying Shorts 360 aircraft. The overheads were little wooden cabinets with kitchen cabinet-like doors. Whatever didn't fit in the luggage compartments was stuffed behind the cabin crew seats in the back of the plane. Complimentary snacks were mint candies. Those were the days!

[Dan]

Maybe the airline has got their inspiration from Shakespeare's--
Merchant of Venice; to extract a " pound of flesh" from every
customer. LOL.

[Esther]

Enecabe, since you use the flylite products, what can you tell us about the country of manufacture? I've been looking for something about the size of the Western Flyer and the small foldaway looks kick ass. Also, if you could tell us about its features and drawbacks, that'd be great.