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Low-cost airline giant Ryanair is changing their baggage policy for the second time this year to ‘speed up boarding and reduce delays’. This new policy will affect 120 million passengers who fly on their aircraft every year.

These new changes affect cabin baggage, specifically:

Up to 95 customers per flight can pay £6 ($7.70) when they book for priority boarding and the ability to bring a 10 kilogram (22 pound) bag into the cabin. Another option is paying £8 pounds ($10.30) to have a 10-kilogram bag checked. Otherwise, customers can only bring on a small bag. Just how small that bag remains to be seen.

This also means that customers bringing a 10kg bag to the gate will now have to pay to have it checked or boarded, rather than them previously bringing it on board for free.

The following changes will take place to tickets booked as of September 1, 2018 and for already booked tickets that are departing from November 1, 2018.

Ryanair has claimed that 40% of passengers will be affected and recommends that they consider upgrading to a priority pass. The Ryanair Priority Pass can be purchased during the time of booking and will allow customers to bring two bags, a 10kg wheelie bag and a small bag, on board for only £6.

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Naturally, this Priority Pass option is the better choice for customers, as, despite being slugged with another fee, it is the minimum amount under this new policy.

Ryanair has claimed that the remaining 60% of customers are already Priority Pass customers, or in fact only travel with a small bag on their planes and won’t be affected.

As Ryanair flies to over 35 countries and has a fleet of 444 planes (443 of them Boeing 737-800s) we can imagine this will affect a lot of customers and will prove to be quite lucrative for the airline. What is also amusing is that only 95 customers per flight will be given the cheaper option, before others will have to pay the more expensive fee, which is truly “making things easier for the customer”.

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As we have seen recently, Ryanair has been causing controversy with its ‘cheapness’, such as charging its crew to have a drink of water on the plane, sending out unsigned checks and cancelling flights across Europe.

“Ryanair expects all its people to pay for their drinks and snacks whether in the staff canteen or on board the aircraft. This is a ‘low cost’, not a ‘free food,’ airline” – Ryanair to CNN.

This new move will encourage customers to spend even more with the Airline and allow them to be more competitive with Wizz Air and Easy Jet, their two main competitors.

“This a potential game changer for passengers and the industry, if Ryanair can make the fee structure stick. The airline is clearly trying to curtail overloading of the cabin but it also has its eye on a lucrative new revenue stream” – Rob Byde, aviation analyst, investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald.

It remains to be seen how this shake-up changes the industry.