I'm all in favour of Ryanair's hand luggage charge – now for the 'fat tax'

Admit it, we’ve all stood at the departure gate of a budget short-haul flight eyeing up the cabin bags around us, wondering where our very own luggage fits into the grand scheme of things.

You can see the check-in staff ripping suitcases, destined for the hold, from the grasp of disgruntled travellers ahead of you, but you hold your nerve and hope their appetites for Samsonites have been sated by the time they wander past you, your bulging briefcase and those hefty souvenirs hanging from your pockets.

Who knows, you’ve probably got a camera or two around your neck, plus a laptop, lunch and yoga mat – nothing at all untoward. “I paid ￡15 for this 2,000-mile express trip across the busiest and most expensive continent on the planet,” you tell yourself. “Why should I be inconvenienced?”

Now multiply this sentiment by 189 and here you have your answer to why the budget airline cabin baggage debate has reared its ugly head once again.

Like anything that generally involves human beings; greed has slowly seeped into the system – becoming the insidious fluff between the seats. Yes, it’s all pursed lips and embarrassed smiles as we jostle through the plane’s doors with our lattes, but come on, it doesn’t take Scotland Yard to discover that our cabin bags have been growing bigger and bigger, millimetre by insignificant millimetre, since the culture of travelling without a suitcase began to flourish in the late 1990s.

However much it may distort our rose-tinted perception of harmony, the harsh reality is that most people – particularly when they travel – look out solely for themselves, especially if that means they can save a few bob by bending the rules. This is exactly what has been happening on Ryanair and all of its budget competitors for years. Passengers with ever expanding bags have been testing the grey area of what’s acceptable to bring into the cabin. The only really surprising development is that it’s taken perhaps the shrewdest airline in the business this long to realise they can monetise their cabins even further.  

Surely I’m not the only person to have reached my seat with a bag, only to discover that someone else got there first and filled the overhead bin with their giant suitcase – meaning I either have to put my possessions at the other end of the cabin, between my legs, or worse still, into the hold. Why should I be inconvenienced because a planeload of adults can’t abide by a set of very simple rules? This is a shared space after all. Does the cost of my ticket not entitle me to a fair portion of the overhead locker? Clearly not, so I’m all for Ryanair’s new charges on hand baggage. As we’ve learnt so many times throughout history; hit us where it really hurts – in the wallet.

It’s not as though we’re quibbling over thousands of pounds, it’s a few quid. Most of us don’t bat an eyelid at paying in excess of ￡5 for a pint of beer or a glass of wine in a pub these days, extortionate levies on fuel for our cars and exorbitant mark-ups on our morning coffee. Is forking out 20 quid on a suitcase for your two-week holiday too much to ask? You’re flying from one side of Europe to the other for next to nothing! This has only been possible for a couple of decades, yet in that short time we’ve been rendered spoilt brats.

As a frequent flier, though, what I find most interesting is to imagine how this current change will, probably, serve as a precursor to something significantly more taboo. We must, surely, be edging ever closer towards a so-called “fat tax” – a pricing scheme that will see each passenger pay a different rate based upon their gross weight, including all of their possessions.

I’ve pondered this controversial school of thought while sat on hundreds of busy flights – and I can only imagine that this pricing structure will be the way we travel in the coming decades. Planes don’t have feelings, they’re inanimate objects that guzzle fuel based on the mass they’re carrying – it doesn’t matter if Mr Plane is carrying pianos or people – one tonne is still one tonne. And as airlines attempt to reduce their fuel consumption for the good of the planet and the debates over a fairer division of cabin space rage on, surely the next step is to charge passengers a flat fee, before then increasing or reducing that charge, based upon the impact that particular ticket will have upon the aircraft?

How about, for example, ￡1 per kilogram, per thousand miles? Meaning I, at a weight of almost 100 kilograms, will pay a flat rate of ￡100 for a flight to Andalusia or Tuscany, whereas a child half my size will pay half the price. These are exactly the sorts of conversations we have in the Post Office when we want to send a tin of Christmas biscuits to Aunty Beryl in Queensland, but for some reason they’re off limits when it comes to flying ourselves from place to place. If we’re going to continue travelling by plane, in the most thought-out and responsible fashion, then we need to fly smarter and have these sorts of conversations, however much it may hurt our feelings. I will happily eat my words if this doesn’t become the norm in my lifetime.

Finally, let’s not overlook the fact that, once again, this tinkering with its pricing structure has served as a crafty free PR exercise for Ryanair and its CEO Michael O’Leary. This change has been discussed on TV and radio programmes all over the planet in the past 24 hours, for something that is really rather trivial in the global news agenda – and I’d be surprised if they haven’t experienced a spike in bookings based purely on their exposure in the media.

But nevertheless, I think I’ll go a little easier on the in-flight paninis and Pringles next time I wander on board – they may well come back to haunt me in the not so distant future.