Ryanair’s 1 bag rule is driven by safety, not revenue

Ryanair has explained that its 1 carry-on bag rule is necessary for safety reasons.  Ryanair also rejected many of the false claims made by a number of poorly briefed MEP’s in the European Parliament yesterday.
 
Because Ryanair operates with very high load factors (avg load factor last year was 83% or over 150 passengers per flight), and because Ryanair encourages its passengers to travel with free of charge carry-on bags in order to avoid checked in bag fees, most Ryanair passengers avail of Ryanair’s (free of charge) 10kg carry-on bag policy.  This means that on a regular basis, all of the overhead lockers and the storage space under the seats are fully used, and Ryanair cannot allow a second carry-on bag to be brought on board for passenger safety reasons. 
 
Ryanair’s Stephen McNamara said: “The inaccurate claims made by some MEP’s 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.  75% 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).
 
“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. 
 
Ryanair’s 1 bag rule is a safety rule, not a revenue rule.”