Online check-in fees are an underhand way of stealing another slice of our cash without displaying it in the headline rate. If we have a choice about paying a fee, then I’m all for them adding it as an extra. We can all decide if we want to fly with an airline that charges 40 quid to carry one bag in the hold. Likewise with seat allocations, speedy boarding etc etc. But where it is unavoidable (fuel charges, taxes, check-in by one method at least) it’s plain dishonest to leave it from the advertised price.
I have to agree with you that the Easyjet experience is best of the bunch: it’s a million miles ahead of Ryanair and often ahead of BA as well. You can be cheap without being nasty.

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You’re moaning about being charged £2? Is that really worth ranting about? Try rolling back a few years Darren, when you’d be charged a mind-boggling amount of money for a seat on a plane if it bore the name ‘British Airways’! The likes of FlyBe, Jet2, Ryanair et al, all come in for a lot of stick from a public that demands prices be as low as possible, yet moan like hell even when these flights are impossibly low-priced when compared to just a decade or so ago.
There’s always a choice. You’ve made it, by choosing only to take carry-on luggage. You could make another one by choosing another carrier. You could make another choice entirely by catching a ferry, then a train. Why not Eurostar? If these options are more expensive, or more inconvenient than the low-cost carriers, then why rant? Stump up, treat it for what it is – still the budget option, and the choice of millions of passengers yearly.

Personally, I have no qualms at all about using O’Leary’s service, for that’s exactly what it is. A service. For me, it’s convenient to get from my local airports (Tours or Nantes Atlantique) to the UK. It’s cheaper by far than the competition, even when I factor in the check-in costs. The real expense comes in the UK – over-priced restaurants, over-priced car hire. Crap service-station sandwiches that are stale and again – overpriced! Overpriced accommodation with lukewarm breakfasts served by unsmiling owners!

Now there’s a rant for you….

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@ Darren. I’ve lost count of the trips I’ve made on Ryanair flights. Never have I seen a family of four travelling to a holiday destination on one of their flights. It isn’t a) cost-effective, nor b) an airline that travels to ‘mainstream’ family holiday destinations. What Ryanair do is offer cheap flights for business people, ex-pats who need a regular (and above all cheap), ‘bus-service’, and for the week-enders who want to ‘do’ Prague, or Paris, Stockholm or Munich on a budget.

The answer to your ultimate question is – because they can. But who really cares, when the alternatives are so much more expensive?

@ Andy. I’m not sure it’s ‘underhand’. The charges have been deemed legal, as they’re advertised up-front. If it was illegal in any way, then I’m sure they’d be slapped by the powers that be. These extras were all rolled out as a way of cutting down on staff costs at check-ins. Hundreds of jobs were slashed, mainly at the EU end. They were announced in the press, online and in full glare of the media spotlight. When O’Leary farts, it’s on the front page.
So, it isn’t underhand, mainly because there’s always a choice. If you don’t like it, go elswhere. If the choices all offer the same thing, then choose the least expensive option.

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I’m not sure how Jet2 is allowed to get away with a check-in fee. If it’s absolutely unavoidable (ie. you have to check in either at the airport or online) then it surely has to be quoted in the advertised fare?

I know Ryanair gets round this by waiving the online check-in fee for its sale fares (ie the recent £5 flights) but making sure it’s on anything not in that sale.

I now tend to work on the policy that booking with any low cost carrier will cost me at least an extra £20 per return – quite probably more – and factor it in.

That said, all the flights I’ve booked recently have been long haul, where this sort of nonsense is far less prevalent.

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Seriously? A fee to check in? SERIOUSLY?

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In my opinion check in fees are just another way to make money they’re losing out on in other areas. It’s the only answer, why else would you have to pay ‘check in’ fees online when not checking in anywhere?! I think it’s time airport should be straight and more transparent with their costs…

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They could always increase the price of the ticket and offer the check-in for free..
But wait, their studies show that consumers are dumb and do not read anything except price.
Ticket price of €9 looks so much better than €11 to the masses.

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@Stu – Ryanair do offer a lot of holiday routes and with the extras it can work expensive. A recent trip as a family of 3 for 2 weeks with 20kg baggage cost an extra £1068 in fees on top of the £297.82 fare. We learnt last time not to do 15KG as scales do not seem to match others. So we booked a normal airline for £119 each.

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I’m from Canada and when I was flying around Europe last summer I couldn’t believe the fees that popped up everywhere. To pay for the flights Ryan Air was charging something like 5 Euro/person / direction just to take my money? I checked in online but as a non EU resident I needed to get my passport checked at the desk anyways and luckily they haven’t decided to add a fee for that yet .

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@Nick – I don’t doubt that they do go to some (not many) mainstream family holiday destinations. But, they’re NOT carrying families for the very reason you yourself didn’t travel with them. It’s just too expensive. So, they aim their company at those that use them the most, as I listed in my last post.

@Christine – With all due respect, if you’d tried ‘flying around Europe’ just a few years ago, you wouldn’t have gotten very far at all due to the eye-watering price of flights. It’s only because of the likes of O’Leary that you’re able to travel cheaply within the EU at all.

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Stu,

I agree, although its still cheap flying out of L’pool..to area’s like Portugal, Lanzarote even with Family in toe! Now the comparison sites have included these carriers, like Easyjet, Ryan-air..etc!!

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Fees to check in online are ridiculous. Airlines are definitely losing out on the customer service front. I’ve been fortunate enough to avoid most fees over the last few years (though I did get caught on one flight because I couldn’t find a way to uncheck some little flight insurance fee (they hid it quite well).

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@Matt – how are they ‘losing out’ when they’re so obviously making money from people like you & I?

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – choice. We all have it. If you’re not happy about paying for something, then don’t. Go elswhere. If you find that you check everywhere else, and still come back to where you started, then don’t complain. You obviously got a good/better deal?

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Ah, yes, sounds like the UK is the only other place besides the US where freewheeling “capitalism” allows airlines to rip off their customers. When I went on my three-flight trip back in August, I flew two different airlines. My total flight cost on my itinerary was about $800, but then I had to pay a $15 baggage check-in fee twice to Delta, and $20 for the same thing to American Airlines. So, in essence, I didn’t even know what the price of my ticket was!

And, of course, airlines are free to change these baggage fees at any time. So, you could pay $15 a bag on your way out, but $30 on your way back. It’s categorically disgusting.

The law ought to require that the price be clearly determined and finalized at time of purchase! It is downright criminal to deny the consumer the ability to discriminate based on price. And, this is exactly what the airlines are doing in the absence of regulation.

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@ Payam – what a load of rubbish. Does anyone really for one moment think that the airlines really can transport you for €1? Of course there are various other charges. There always have been. When you paid a ticket price to British Airways of £699 to fly to Alicante in 1982, do you think all of that price was for your seat? Of course not. A chunk of it goes towards check-in costs. Another chunk went to the airport for landing slots, security etc. Costs are ‘hidden’ all the time.
These are small prices you’re paying, get over it!
If you don’t like it – use your power of choice! Oh, and don’t complain about ‘freewheeling capitalism’ when you’ve never experienced austere restrictions of travel!

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@ Stu

You are missing two critical points.

First, the airline industry has become the only industry where they do not disclose the total cost of the product to you at time of purchase. This is like your buying a car only to learn that there is an additional fee to drive it off the lot AFTER YOU HAVE PAID FOR IT! Again, in the case of baggage check-in fees, they aren’t disclosed at the time of purchase. So, the traveler doesn’t actually know the cost of the flight.

The second point is that the consequence of the foregoing is that the consumer CANNOT exercise this “power of choice” that you cite. If we don’t know the price of the ticket, how do we choose?

Please read what I wrote. I have no objection to fees. I am demanding full disclosure at time of purchase. This is the only way to give the consumer the “power of choice”.

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@ Payam. Uep, I’m missing something, because I must be the only one that thinks there’s no ‘rip-off’ here.

I’ve just experimented with the Ryanair website, choosing flights to/from Tours. I chose the flights, and was quoted a price for each. It looked like this -

Aller (tarif Internet)
1 Adulte @ 34,99 GBP 34,99 GBP
Taxes/Frais détails 29,97 GBP
Retour (tarif Internet)
1 Adulte @ 16,99 GBP 16,99 GBP
Taxes/Frais détails 0,00 GBP
2 x (Frais d’enregistrement en ligne) 10,00 GBP
Coût total du vol 91,95 GBP
L’Exclusion des Frais d’Administration (le cas échéant)

Pour la liste complete des tarifs et charges Ryanair merci de cliquer ici

So, no confusion? All the charges are there. What the flights cost is seperate to any other charges. So, we know what the flight costs, don’t we? You’re also given a clickable link to explain the taxes prior to booking.
You’re then asked whether you want to check in any baggage, and you’re then given a costing for this according to weight. Still seperate from any flight costs. Ok, the baggage fees may be high, but you still have the choice here. Ryanair don’t make you check baggage through. Ryanair make sure that at each step, you’re able to quit and search other sites.

So, back to our booking. At this pont, you know how much the total will be. The website adds it all up for you. At this point you also have the choice to continue with the booking, or look elsewhere. Simple consumer choice at work. Now, tell me where there’s flawed logic in this?

Of course you get to make an informed choice. Follow the booking steps up until the point at which you hand over your card details. The cheapest carrier wins. Full disclosure is staring you in the face.

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Stu,

Fair enough, but in the US, baggage handling fees are NOT included and subject to change without notice. Obviously, you guys have better regulations in EU.

Nevertheless, I agree with Darren that these fees belong in the price of the ticket, not as addenda to the price.

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At least one, Frontier Airlines, is trying out the approach of showing fares with or without baggage fees. Search for any flights on their site, and it’ll show you about 2 or 3 choices which includes baggage fees and what-not.

Would be nice if other airlines try that way. Just that they tend to lose out to those showing supposedly lower fares but not including other fees.

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I agree it is despicable, but a check in fee is not much different to a credit card payment fees where you cannot pay for tickets with the airline by any other means.

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This needs new legislation.

You do not have an alternative to checking in, it has to happen, so adding an ‘additional’ charge and not including it on the initial pricing is deceitful. Airlines should be forced to display the full price, then discount the price based on using online check in, not the other way around. That way, you can see the total you may end up paying, and be aware that by using online services you can actually reduce that posted price, not watch it go through the roof owing to a mass of fictional add on’s (online or desk check in, paying by credit card etc)

Imagine if Tesco operated like these airlines? You put up some milk off the stand advertised at £1.20, get to the tills and are told,

“we need to add another 30 pence for using a manned till or you can pay 10 pence for the self service till. We also need to add £2 for card transactions, but only 50pence if you pay cash. Carrier bags are 30 pence, but we let you use your own for 5 pence. Oh, and you need to pay for parking in our car park”.

This is how ridiculous the low cost airline industry has become. Pricing needs to be extremely clear. What is happening here is a deceitful practice, designed to make people thing that flying is a lot cheaper than it is.

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