iStockRyanair is considering increasing a bonus for staff who catch passengers with oversized bags.
Staff at the budget airline received a “gate bag bonus” of £1.30 for every passenger they charge for an oversized baggage fee.
This financially incentivises staff to charge passengers a fee of up to £65 if their bag fails to match the size they paid for when booking.
Ryanair said that the fee is used to “eliminate the scourge of oversized bags”.
Michael O’Leary, the airline’s boss, told RTE’s Morning Ireland, “we’re thinking of increasing it [the bonus]”.
The airline use “sizers” located within the airport and at gates to test whether a bag is oversized by seeing if a bag fits.
The airline currently allows a free small carry-on bag – with a size capped at 40cm x 20cm x 25cm and weight of 10kg – although this is set to increase with minimum standards being brought in by the EU.
Passengers are able to pay for extra carry-on luggage.
A spokesperson said: “We are determined to eliminate the scourge of oversized bags which delay boarding and are clearly unfair on the over 99% of our passengers who comply with our baggage rules.
“We do pay commission to our agents who identify and charge for oversized bags, but these fees are paid by less than 0.1% of passengers who don’t comply with our agreed bags rules.
“Our message to those 0.1% of passengers is simple; please comply with our generous bag rules or you will be charged at check-in or at the gate.
“For the 99.9% of our passengers who comply with our rules we say thank you and keep flying as you have nothing to worry about.”
The news comes after Ryanair showed a post-tax profit of £710.3m for April to June.
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