By Simon Calder

Copyright independent

Passengers are accustomed to the idea that the price of a seat on a budget airline can vary wildly, depending on the strength of demand from other travellers. The Ryanair morning flight from Manchester to Malaga costs as little as £15 in November but more than £200 in July, for exactly the same three-hour flight

Travellers are also used to the principle that to take anything more than a small bag into the cabin requires the payment of a fee – that may on occasion be more than the price of the seat. That £15 fare to Malaga in November more than doubles if you want to wheel a larger case into the cabin (which also provides priority boarding).

The three large low-cost airlines – easyJet, Ryanair and Wizz Air – all make useful revenue from the fees.

British Airways and Jet2 are two exceptions to the principle of charging for cabin baggage. Both airlines allow two pieces, including a chunky roll-along case.

Among the airlines that charge for larger hand luggage, you might expect the fee to be fixed. Yet research by The Independent shows dramatic differences in that amount: from under £16 to more than twice as much. What is going on? That is what we have been trying to find out with a long series of test bookings.

Until 2006, concern about hand luggage simply didn’t arise. Flights came with a substantial free checked baggage allowance. If people wanted to bring larger hand luggage on board, that was because they did not want to risk the possibility of it going astray, or to make a faster getaway upon arrival.

In 2006, though, budget airlines started charging for checked baggage. As the practice spread, passengers inevitably started cramming whatever they could into hand luggage. The overhead bins soon started flowing over – delaying flights and causing departure gate kerfuffle as some larger pieces of cabin baggage were consigned to the hold.

Carriers soon spotted another revenue source: charging for taking larger pieces of hand luggage on board. Two airlines – Ryanair and Wizz Air – also confer priority boarding for people who pay extra for larger cabin baggage, on the reasonable grounds that these passengers have first run at the overhead storage bins.

No. You might pay £15.50 on Ryanair from Liverpool to Dublin, or £32.99 on easyJet from Gatwick to Barcelona. The average charge according to dozens of flights researched by The Independent is around £20 on Ryanair, £27 on Wizz Air and £28 on easyJet. But each of those airlines have sharp variations in the charge.

The obvious variable is distance, because flying a 10kg case has a small impact on fuel burn. The further your bag travels, the more fuel the aircraft consumes – which also raises the issue of whether passengers should be weighed along with their belongings. But that’s another story…

Ryanair and Wizz Air have bag fees that appear related to the length of the flight. On Ryanair the charge for taking a large piece of cabin baggage on the half-hour flight from Liverpool Dublin averages £16, while Prestwick-Tenerife – over four hours – is around £25.

Wizz Air applies a fairly constant £30 for the five-hour stretch from Luton to Sharm el Sheikh, while a shorter route such as Birmingham to Rome is a few pounds less.

But easyJet’s logic is harder to fathom. For example, Manchester to Heraklion in Crete is 1,822 miles – 10 times further than from Manchester to Belfast International. Yet on 1 October, easyJet charges £28.99 to the Greek island – but £2 more for the short hop to Northern Ireland £30.99.

No. For example, on easyJet’s London Gatwick to Barcelona route, I priced the cost of a larger piece of hand luggage on six random dates. The lowest was in July (£26.49); the highest in September and February.

To try to work out what is going on, I tested a range of theories:

In no case were any of these supported by evidence.

For both Ryanair and Wizz Air, though, there appears to be a small advantage in booking a cabin bag a long way ahead.

Just as carriers want to fill each seat on the plane and extract the maximum possible revenue for each, so the airlines want every available space in the overhead bins to be sold. Demand is actually likely to be stronger on shorter city-break or business routes than on longer holiday flights, where families typically check in luggage.

A spokesperson for easyJet said: “As there is a limit to the capacity of the overhead lockers versus the number of seats, easyJet has to limit the number of cabin bags that are brought on board. We want to guarantee that those that have paid for a large cabin bag have certainty that they will be able to carry it with them.

“Cabin bags are priced according to demand, for example on shorter leisure or city flights there is more demand for cabin bags, therefore the prices are slightly higher, compared to longer-leisure routes where people are more likely to take a hold bag. So this is why there is less of a relationship between the length of the route and the price of the cabin bag.

“In addition, even on the same route, there will be certain flights where there is more demand for cabin bags, and therefore if more cabin bags have already been sold on that flight, then it’s likely the price will be slightly higher than flights where less cabin bags have been sold at that stage.”

Booking the baggage at the same time as the flight – rather than nearer to departure – seems to save a few pounds. But if you have to cancel the flight for any reason, you will lose the bag fee too.

Consider whether the charge is so high that contemplating checked baggage is better value. For example, on a recent Vueling flight from Gatwick to Barcelona, a special deal offered the chance to check a 25kg bag for just €30 (£26).

Best of all, just take the small personal item. If enough of us do that, the airlines might align their fees more closely to the cost of providing the service. Or book with British Airways or Jet2, and swerve the cabin-baggage conunudrum completely.

Research based on the following airline/route combinations, with test bookings made on 17 September 2025 for a range of dates from September 2025 to July 2026

easyJet: Gatwick-Barcelona, Manchester-Belfast International, Manchester-Heraklion

Ryanair: Liverpool-Dublin, Manchester-Katowice, Manchester-Malaga, Prestwick-Tenerife South

Wizz Air: Luton-Sharm el Sheikh, Birmingham-Rome

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