Will Ryanair’s new baggage policy force airports to review baggage system capacities?

On the 1st November Ryanair will bring in a new stricter cabin baggage policy which will move away from the traditional low cost airline model of being able to bring a standard cabin bag on board for free. Since 1991 Ryanair and other low cost airlines have conditioned behaviour from passengers that to avoid paying more than the initial ticket price they should only travel with a cabin bag. However passengers have now become so used to this, airlines are now struggling to accommodate all the cabin bags. Over the last few years airlines have been dealing with this challenge by gate checking cabin bags free of charge, however this practice creates a number of operational inefficiencies for the airlines and airports. Ryanair’s solution is to shrink the free cabin bag allowance to the size of a handbag or small rucksack, and then charge people to either take a larger bag on-board as part of the priority boarding premium or checking the bag into the hold for a small fee. This was tried previously by Wizzair, but was dropped as the airline looked to grow more aggressively. Will Ryanair’s new policy be a success and how will that effect airports? If successful the benefits to Ryanair include: Additional ancillary revenue – Ryanair estimate 60% of passengers will be unaffected by the change, however this means 40% will need to spend more money on their Ryanair flight than they did before Operational efficiency – This policy should remove the need to […]

Doha Airport Baggage Design

Design of new arrivals baggage system, New Departures System and Upgrade of Existing Departures System. £8m Completed 2011. Baggage system design for options and scheme on three separate projects. Millar Management appointed Qatar Airways to design economical solutions for the three projects: New arrivals baggage system including remote feeds to 8 No new carousels with in line customs screening RFID tagging solution developed for bag identification. Increasing capacity of existing departures baggage system including integration of inline hold baggage screening, SAC and output sort. New Stillage design to increase make up capacity. New baggage system including large output carousel, in-line screening and EBS and 23 new check-in desks. All designs were being carried out using 3D Cad, coordinating into main Architect 3D models. Technical specifications and tender documents prepared for all three projects.