Irish airlines Ryanair, Aer Lingus raise baggage charges

Ryanair and Aer Lingus, two major airlines of Ireland, have increased charges for luggage. While Ryanair has raised its checked-in baggage charge to 10 euros and check-in fees to 5 euros, passengers of Aer Lingus who check in bags at the airport will have to shell out 18 euros and a fee of 12 euros for baggage booked online via the airline’s website.

Ryanair and Aer Lingus both have blamed soaring costs of aviation fuel for hiking luggage charges and have become the latest airlines to have upped charges thanks to surging fuel costs.

The Irish airline Ryanair, headquartered in Dublin, has its biggest operational base at London’s Stansted Airport. It is also Europe’s largest low-cost carrier and the third-largest airline in Europe in terms of passenger numbers.

Aer Lingus, the flag carrier of Ireland, is based at Dublin Airport and it operates 41 Airbus aircraft services to Europe, Africa and North America. Aer Lingus is 29.4% owned by Ryanair and 25.4% owned by the government of Ireland.

The increase by Aer Lingus, which takes effect on May 8, 2008, comes on the heels of similar moves a week ago by British Airways, which raised fuel surcharges, and EasyJet, which increased baggage check-in charges.

(The low-cost airline EasyJet charges passengers £5 for every piece of luggage they check in online, rising to £10 if it is not paid for until the airport.)

From May 8, online baggage check-in at Aer Lingus will cost £8, while checking in luggage at the airport will cost £12 an item.

The website www.guardian.co.uk quoted an official of Aer Lingus as saying that   “the change was driven by the desire to encourage more of our passengers to carry hand baggage.”

A statement from Aer Lingus said: “The airline hopes that the latest round of price increases “will encourage more passengers to travel with less checked baggage and will assist in streamlining passenger movement through airports. We want to encourage more of our passengers to carry hand baggage and also to travel with less baggage so the travelling experience can become even quicker and more efficient for everyone.”

The new baggage kiosks, which will allow customers to check-in their bags automatically, will be piloted at Dublin Airport over the coming months, the Aer Lingus statement added.

However, analysts in the aviation sector said high fuel costs was the prime concern for airlines, following a number of airline bankruptcies over the past month owing to unsustainable rises in costs.

A statement form Ryanair said the airline’s April 2008 load factor (load factor shows the proportion of seats sold per flight) dropped by 4 percentage points to 79%.

Ryanair’s passenger numbers rose by 15% to 51.55 million after the carrier added more planes to its fleet. But analysts have warned, website guardian.co.uk added, that “declining load factors indicate demand, depressed by the poor economic outlook in the United States and Europe, is failing to keep up with aggressive industry expansion.”

It is the second time in 2008 that Ryanair has raised its passenger charges and, analysts say, this may not be the last.

Peter Sherrard, spokesman for Ryanair, was quoted by BBC as saying: “We will continue to increase baggage fees until half of our passengers check-in online. It will allow us to reduce check-in and handling costs and pass on these savings to our passengers in the form of Europe’s guaranteed lowest fares.”