View the graphic of what airlines charge for

When the no-frills carriers started, we got what we paid for, which wasn’t much for not a lot. But with soaring fuel prices squeezing their profits, they have begun imposing charges for essentials – everything from checking in to taking hold baggage.

Say you’re a family of four travelling on a return flight with Ryanair. You check in at the airport, have one piece of hold luggage each, take the priority-boarding option, pay by credit card and have a sandwich and a coffee each way.

In the good old days, most of those would have cost you nothing, but now that little lot could set you back a whopping £278 - over and above the cost of the flights and taxes.

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BACKGROUND

• Ryanair risks big fine over adverts

• EasyJet's excess baggage saving not what it seems

• Your Top 10 baggage questions

• Ryanair to charge for airport check-in

The airlines will say that most of the new charges are avoidable, and that is true up to a point, but it doesn’t always feel like that when you are on a budget airline’s website and rushing to book before the fares jump up.

The most costly extra charges are for baggage. If you fail to guess at the time of booking how much hold luggage you’ll probably take with you, you’ll pay a premium to check in any bag that isn’t booked in advance. With Ryanair and Wizz, that means stumping up £16 per bag, each way (double the fee for prebooked bags).

BMI Baby and Flybe aren’t far behind, at £12 per bag, and Jet2 charges £11 (see table above). Shockingly, these are flat rates, regardless of the size or weight of your luggage. With the “one cabin bag” rule now being so strictly enforced, that joke wicker donkey you bought for a fiver could cost another £16.

It’s not just the number of bags you’ve got to watch, either, it’s the weight.

With Ryanair, the £16-per-bag fee is for a combined total weight of up to 15kg. Anything over that and you’ll be stung for £12 per kilo. So, take just one 20kg bag on a return flight and that’s an extra £120, thanks very much.

Anyone with hold luggage needs to watch the check-in fees, too. With many airlines, if you have anything to go in the hold, you can’t use the online facility, but have to check in at the airport - which, with Ryanair, incurs a £4 fee, per person, per flight. With BMI Baby, it’s an even higher £6 if the airport has online check-in available.

By contrast, most traditional airlines have a free baggage allowance - 23kg with British Airways - and impose no fee for airport check-in, seat selection or in-flight refreshments.

Despite this, the no-frills carriers still usually work out cheaper than the traditional airlines - but, with the new costs they are imposing, it’s more important than ever to keep an eye on all those extras. They can mount up alarmingly.

Sure, some are optional - you can do without the coffee - but if having a suit-case and sitting together are important to you, it’ll pay to shop around.

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