Ryanair – the new boarding drill
lørdag, januar 30th, 2010Today my wife and I returned to Norway after spending 1 week on winter holiday in Spain. It was a beautyful day in the Murcia region, and everything went smoothly until we reached gate 26 at Alicante Airport.
At the desk where you flash "the printout" (or the ticket as we used to call it) for "tear off", the crew at Ryanair showed no mercy. Every passenger with cabin baggage were urged to stuff bags, backpacks, suitcases and you name it, into the template made of steel pipes, measuring exactly 55cm x 40cm x 20cm. ONLY ONE ITEM ALLOWED, REMEMBER!
I was carrying a digital SLR camera and a 200 mm zoom lens. My wife had just bought a bottle of Remy Martin and 2 bottles of red wine. The liquor was carried in a separate "Tax Free" bag. This time I was forced to bring the nearly 5 year old Thinkpad T43 back to Norway for maintenance. It laid on top of everything else in the suitcase. Both my wife and I were firmly told to repack/slim down our suitcases. How on earth should we handle this? And what about the cognac and the red wine? I was not in the mood for alcohol abuse. Cram quite a big camera with an even bigger lens + a laptop into an ordinary flight suitcase already filled up with clothes? The task seemed impossible. Should I trash the SLR or the €1000 lens or the T43? The situation called for action. I grabbed a pullover from the suitcase and put it on. Then I filled both the side pockets of my jacket with deodorant, shaver, toothpaste and a book I din’t want to loose. The camera and the lens went into the suitcase and the T43 went into my trousers under 2 pullovers and one leather jacket zipped all the way up. I looked slightly dysmorph, but it did the trick. My wife dumped a sweater, filled up all available pockets and voila, the suitcases passed the "cage-test". Luckily, they forgot to weigh them.
I think Ryanair inventet the concept of “preboarding”. While we were waiting in the stairway (by the way, nice temperature at this time of the year) to get onto the airplane, I put the pulover and the laptop back . The rest of the trip worked out all right.
I know that Ryanair is stressing that only one item is allowed as cabin baggage. I just didn’t expect them to reject a camera! I haven’t experienced that before. We didn’t expect Ryanair to deny us carrying a bag of taxfree goods onto the plane either . Retrospectively, I must admit that I have not done my homework properly. Check this link, and you see what I mean.
This strict enforcement of rules is in my opinion unnecessary and hostile. Obviously the only reason for doing this is to make more money. I think Ryanair would benefit from showing a more relaxed attitude. However, I wouldn`t bet on that. We will surely travel with Ryanair again, with baggy clothes and large and empty pockets:).
