Banging my Head in Time to the Ryanair Fanfare

Ooops, I did it again ... flying on Ryanair that is. And I can't help but wonder why you have a set of regulations if nobody gives a damn. As it happened I was banging my head against every available surface regarding Ryanair's hand luggage rules and their enforcement. Even though the rules were bent to my advantage. And the flight was very much in time, as the Scottish guy announced over the dreaded fanfare.

Let me explain: Ryanair states explicitly that all (as in ALL) your carry-on luggage must fit in one (as in 1) bag and not exceed ten kilograms (as in 10 KG). Easy, eh? Not so, as it turns out - every single person involved in the process of checking this seems to have his or her own interpretation of "all", "one" and "ten". Which in effect means that you spend seventeen hours packing your bags to Ryanair's well-publicised rules and regulations only to find out while boarding you were the only idiot adhering to them.

This is what Ryanair says on their website:

"Strictly one item of cabin baggage is permitted per passenger (excluding infants). Handbag, briefcase, laptops, shop purchases, camera etc must be carried within your permitted 1 piece of cabin baggage."

Good. Easy to understand. Or is it? The friendly ground staff at Frankfurt-Hahn told a different story. In short:

Oh, no - shop purchases don't count! Otherwise Ryanair will run into trouble with the shops!

Who do you trust? Seeing that there were absolutely zero weight controls (and nobody could be bothered to count the number of baggage items) at Frankfurt-Hahn this time, I opted for overweight baggage and purchased a few bottles of "Kräuterlikör" (for purely medicinal purposes, I hasten to add). All well and fine, but why bother to pack according to rules then in the first place? If nobody, including Ryanair's (contracted) staff cares, why should I?

Basically because one never knows when these rules will be enforced with what severity. If you drag a ton of luggage up to the departure gate and are denied boarding it is your very own fault.

On the other hand it would be nice if Ryanair could be tempted to introduce a policy that its ground staff actually bothers to adhere to. Just for the sake of having that extra bit more transparency. Because in every travel forum on the wibbly wobbly web you'll have those extra-helpful people giving the sage advice that on their flight Ryanair did not bother, hence feel free to pack six bowling balls extra. Followed a week or so later by bitter complaints that Ryanair is morally corrupt because they did not allow whatever this passenger brought along in breach of regulations.

Should Michael O'Leary or any of his management staff read this ... guys, make it easier for passengers, stick to your own rules and make any hired help stick to it as well. Everything else causes confusion and disgruntled passengers. And, to be quite honest, if every passenger on the plane flouts the weight rule, you might have a problem with the calculated fuel consumption as well.

And could you please stop playing this fanfare when the plane is on time? I'll even promise to buy a Ryanair calendar next year (for purely philanthropic purposes, I hasten to add).

Photo © 2009 Bernd Biege licensed to About.com, Inc.