A pound to spend a penny; £30 to carry home a giant Toblerone that won’t fit in your bag; and now rumours that Ryanair is planning to introduce a fat tax for overweight passengers. It is little wonder that Times Money has received almost 600 comments and complaints about the budget airline on our Money Central blog.
From next week Ryanair will charge £5 to check in online and impose a £40 fine per person, each way, if you fail to bring your boarding card to the airport.
The aim, says Steve McNamara, a spokesman for the airline, is to phase out airport check-ins by October. He says that the charge will “benefit some as it will not be applied to promotional fares”. But he admits that for the majority of those who do not manage to bag the best deals “flights will cost a little bit more”.
Ryanair is by no means the only budget airline to catch out passengers with fees. Flying with bmibaby will cost you £10.99 per bag on each flight if you book online, but £15 if you forget and book in your luggage when you get to the airport. Flybe charges £13 and Aer Lingus £15 a bag, each way, if booked at the airport.
EasyJet demands a 2.5 per cent transaction fee when paying for flights with a credit card. This comes on top of a £2.95 booking fee — and you have to be careful to uncheck additional travel insurance when buying a flight on its website, otherwise as much as £17 per passenger will be added to the cost of your ticket.
With all these charges, can these airlines still claim to be budget carriers? Times Money decided to investigate. Looking at the two market leaders — easyJet and Ryanair — and British Airways, the scheduled airline, we have compared the total costs of taking a flight from London this summer for a family holiday, a weekend break and a business trip.
Two-week family holiday to Málaga, Spain
Two adults and two children travelling on Saturday morning, August 1, returning on Saturday evening, August 15, with three bags in the hold and one set of golfclubs.
British Airways (from Gatwick)
Cost with debit card: £1,166
Cost with credit card: £1,171
EasyJet (from Gatwick)
Cost with debit card: £1,073
Cost with credit card: £1,098
Ryanair (from Stansted)
Cost with debit card: £1,265
Cost with credit card: £1,265
The cheapest fare on a credit card for a family of four to Málaga is with easyJet, at £1,098. But this is only £73 less than flying with British Airways, which will offer you seats booked together, a more generous baggage allowance and free food and drink during the flight.
The easyJet ticket is £166 cheaper than the Ryanair equivalent, which is the most expensive option because of its additional charges. If you book everything on the Ryanair website, you still pay £94 more than you would for the same journey with British Airways. All the flights are about the same length at a little less than three hours.
If you book the flight after next week’s fee changes and forget to check in before you arrive at Stansted, you will have to stump up £40 per person, per flight — that’s a hefty £320 for a family of four simply to check in at the airport.
If you do not use the website and book your baggage into the hold via the Ryanair call centre or when you get to the airport, the airline will charge an extra £10 per bag, per flight, and an extra £10 per flight for each item of sports equipment.
It is worth noting that phoning Ryanair will cost you too — £1 a minute. A Ryanair flight to Málaga without prebooked luggage and check-in would cost £419 more than the same journey with British Airways.
Italian weekend break for two
Two adults travelling to Rome on Friday evening, September 4, returning Monday evening, September 7, with one bag in the hold.
British Airways (Gatwick to Rome Fiumicino)
Cost with debit card: £251
Cost with credit card: £256
EasyJet (Gatwick to Rome Fiumicino)
Cost with debit card: £240
Cost with credit card: £244
Ryanair (Stansted to Rome Ciampino)
Cost with debit card: £244
Cost with credit card: £244
British Airways is the most expensive flight, but only £12 more than Ryanair. But that difference disappears if you book priority boarding with Ryanair, at a cost of £3 each way per person.
It will cost only £7 more to fly with British Airways if you pay for your flight with a debit card. That is about as much as the cost of a couple of bottles of water and a packet of peanuts on one of the budget airlines.
Also bear in mind that Ryanair only flies from Stansted and into Ciampino, a small military airport with relatively few facilities for tourists, rather than Rome’s main international airport, Fiumicino.
Last-minute, midweek business trip to Scotland for one night
One adult travelling to Glasgow early on Tuesday, June 2, returning early the following day, June 3, with no bags in the hold.
British Airways (Gatwick to Glasgow International)
Cost with debit card: £79
Cost with credit card: £83
EasyJet (Gatwick to Glasgow International)
Cost with debit card: £56
Cost with credit card: £59
Ryanair (Stansted to Glasgow Prestwick)
Cost with debit card: £55
Cost with credit card: £55
A midweek flight, carrying no hold baggage, offers the best-value travel on the budget airlines. Mr McNamara points out: “The cheapest fares during the busiest periods — school holidays or over Bank Holiday weekends — are snapped up quickly, so it is worth booking off-peak.”
In this instance, a flight to Scotland with easyJet and Ryanair is more than £25 cheaper than a British Airways flight. The Ryanair outbound single fare actually costs nothing and the easyJet return flight £19.99. But with third-party fees and booking charges, the headline rates rise quickly.
What’s more, the Ryanair flight will take you to Glasgow Prestwick airport, which is 32 miles from the centre of the city — so your £25 saving will disappear on a taxi fare — all without a morning croissant and newspaper on the flight. And if you work in Central London, you will spend the additional £25 getting to the airport — the Stansted Express will set you back at least that much.
The moral of the story, according to Barry Smith, co-founder of the comparison website skyskanner.net, is “to stay flexible, add up the fees before you click ‘buy’ and never, ever fly on a low-cost airline with children — you will get hammered for baggage”. He adds: “Remember that aircraft are big pieces of kit and the cost of running them has to come from somewhere. If flights are 1p, the airline will rely on customer naivety to make its money.”
How to avoid those extra charges
If you can, fly midweek, avoid peak times and book several months ahead to take advantage of promotions. Ryanair allocates 50 seats per flight as “very low fare”, but they disappear in a flash.
Make sure that you weigh your luggage before you get to the airport. Ryanair has a stingy 15kg limit and will charge £15 for each additional kilogram each way if you overpack.
Check where your flight will land; the airport could be miles from your desired destination. Frankfurt Hahn airport, for example, is about two hours’ drive from the centre of Frankfurt.
Ryanair and easyJet do not charge booking fees if you pay for your ticket with a Visa electron card.
Use flight comparison websites. On skyscanner.net, for example, you can view a whole month of flights to the same destination, allowing you to pick the cheapest day to travel or find the airline with the lowest-priced ticket.
• Consider booking your outbound and return journeys with different airlines to cut costs.
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