IF YOU travel with Ryanair, it’s not just the holidaymakers who put on weight. The airline was last week accused of boosting profits by charging excess fees for baggage weighed on faulty scales.

One piece of baggage that was weighed by The Sunday Times at 14.8kg registered 17kg on Ryanair scales as it was checked in for a flight back to Britain last week. It meant it was levied with an excess charge of £11.

Other passengers on the same flight from Girona in Spain complained that their bags also seemed to mysteriously gain weight when put on Ryanair’s scales. Customers who asked to transfer some items to their hand luggage to avoid a penalty charge were told they would have to queue again to check in.

Ryanair charges £5 for each piece of checked-in baggage for online bookings and £10 if the baggage fee is paid at the airport. In addition, there is a charge of £5.50 for every additional kilogram above the 15kg allowance.

It is estimated that this year Ryanair will make at least £92m profit from the baggage check-in charges. This does not include the extra income for the overweight baggage.

The airline insists it has not introduced the charges to generate profits, but to deter passengers from checking baggage into the hold. Only about 55% of the airline’s passengers now check in baggage, compared with about 75% before the charges were introduced.

Chris Haslam, a Sunday Times travel writer, weighed his baggage for a London Stansted to Girona flight last Friday at 14.6kg. The weight was confirmed by the scales at Stansted. During a three-day walking trip, no extra baggage was put into his bag but according to the scales at Girona, the bag had added more than 2kg in weight for his return flight, registering at 17kg.

Alison Vials, a travel agent from Hainault, northeast London, who was on the same flight, said the charges were “a scam”. “I brought a number of presents with me on the way out and my bag weighed just under 15kg. Now, I’m flying home without the presents and they’re telling me my bag is overweight at 17kg,” she said.

Ryanair said this weekend that it did not set targets or give commission for revenue generated by excess baggage fees. It was not able to explain the concerns of passengers in Girona that baggage was being weighed inaccurately, but said all scales were checked independently.

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