Ryanair rejected claims made by a member of the European Parliament that its one-bag-rule per passenger was profit-driven "Wild West" style opportunism, saying that the rule is there for safety reasons.
Socialist MEP Paul Murphy has asked the European Parliament to put forward a proposal for the European Commission to take action on the restrictive carry-on bag rule imposed by some airlines.
The transport committee oral question also called on the Commission to address rules on items such as laptop bags and restrictions on passengers' airport retail purchases by setting a common upper limit on the size and weight of hand luggage on all EU flights.
But Ryanair today rejected the accusations and said that its one carry-on bag rule is necessary for safety reasons.
"The inaccurate claims made by some MEPs yesterday that Ryanair's free of charge carry-on bag policy was designed to "generate revenues" were absurd and untrue. The purpose of Ryanair's free of charge 10kgs carry-on bag is to allow passengers to avoid our checked in bag fees. 75pc of Ryanair's 80m passengers now travel without paying any checked in bag fees, while availing of our 10kg free of charge carry-on bag facility. This reduces Ryanair's revenues (and our costs)," said Ryanair spokesman, Stephen McNamara. "Ryanair's 1 carry-on bag rule cannot be changed for safety reasons. It would be helpful if these MEP's made some basic attempt to understand Ryanair's safety and low fare policies before making false and inaccurate claims in the European parliament. The idea that Europe's only ultra-low fares airline, which has pioneered low fare travel and continues to promote free of charge carry-on bags (when other airlines are increasingly charging for carry-on bags) and lower prices than any other airline, is somehow an example of "capitalist greed", is as absurd as some of these MEP's claiming to care about consumers, while travelling on high fare airlines at the taxpayers' expense."
However, MEP Murphy said the one-bag rule was "a means for airlines to maximise profits at all costs". Addressing the European Parliament, he said: "Many airlines use this one-bag rule, not in the interests of passenger safety or comfort, but simply as a means of increasing their bottom line by forcing passengers to pay inflated fees for checked baggage. "This is only one of the many Wild West-style practices practised to increase bottom lines. Ryanair is at the vanguard of these practices. Misleading advertising, poor customer service, rip-off credit card fees and less than straight websites are all pioneered by this airline."
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