Why easyJet passengers should appeal fines for oversized bags

Many people are angry about being wrongly fined for compliant cabin bags, and one determined passenger has proved that the official bag sizer was the problem. 

Louise Machin says she was ‘dismayed and confused’ when staff working for easyJet slapped her with a €58 fee at Chania Airport in Crete.

They claimed that her cabin bag was too big, yet she knew it was perfectly fine.

‘I had successfully travelled out from London Gatwick five days before, and it had fitted into the luggage sizer there with no problem,’ she says. ‘I had also checked it with the easyJet digital sizing tool prior to travel.’

She knew the only explanation was that the sizer at Chania Airport was smaller than the size allowed.

‘I tried to explain this to the ground staff, that my bag was compliant and it seemed to me that their luggage sizer was too small,’ she says, ‘but they were very aggressive and told me that if I didn’t pay on the spot, I would not be able to travel home. 

'It was a threatening environment, and they wouldn’t listen to me. I felt like I was going mad because I knew my bag was the right size! I was forced to make the payment so that I could travel home.’

Get a year of super-useful advice

Who to book with, how to get the best deals plus inspiring destination ideas from the experts, for only £36.75 for the year – that’s 25% off.

Join Which? Travel

Offer ends 8th January 2026

Which? recommended luggage manufacturer saves customer from fine

Louise was luckier than the thousands of people hit with oversized-bag fees in the past year.

She contacted the manufacturer of her bag, Cabin Max. The brand – a Which? recommended cabin bag maker – confirmed that her bag complied with easyJet’s size restrictions.

It wasn’t the first time Cabin Max had been contacted about airlines fining its customers. It sent Louise a photo it had received from another customer, showing an easyJet bag sizer with the metal sides set further in than they should have been (see the images it sent us below). Bags that would normally fit easily would be rejected, and passengers would face fines. 

Cabin Max speculated that the sizer was ‘broken or poorly maintained’.

Armed with Cabin Max’s response, she went back to easyJet, and it agreed to refund her.

Passengers fined for cabin bags

Louise is not the only person to feel unfairly penalised for a bag they say was the right size.

Earlier this year, we reported on the case of Colin McPherson, who had to pay easyJet £48 extra for his supposedly oversized backpack at Glasgow Airport. He, too, got his money back in the end – but only after a battle.

It’s a scenario that hundreds of thousands of passengers with easyJet and Ryanair go through every year. Bags that have been on any number of low-cost flights are suddenly deemed to be oversized. 

More commonly, a handle or strap is a couple of millimetres outside the sizer cage, and that’s enough for a whopping fine. Until recently, we were confused about why the ground staff cared so much. What difference does a few millimetres make? 

The answer came this summer, when it was revealed that they’re paid a bonus for every oversized bag they catch – in effect, for every passenger’s day that they ruin. Ryanair has recently increased the bonus to €2.50 for charges that can be up to £75 per bag, while easyJet has been more coy but admits that its ground crews get bonuses. 

Complaints to cabin bag manufacturers

Louise Machin is also not the only person who’s complained to a bag manufacturer after buying a case that was advertised as complying with an airline’s rules. 

You need only look at the reviews of cabin bags sold as fitting the requirements for easyJet or Ryanair to see the scale of the problem for passengers. 

‘I bought two suitcases which are meant to fit under the seat on easyJet,’ fumed one customer. ‘When I measured them, they seemed to comply with the rules. But they didn’t fit the easyJet measuring gauge, and I was made to pay €116.’ 

Another passenger complained that their bag tore as they forced it into the easyJet measuring cage. ‘We recognise that sizer checks can vary between airports,’ was the apologetic response to the review. ‘Force-fitting a bag can sometimes cause unintended damage.’ 

Airlines' huge profits from ‘extras’.

Louise Machin and Colin McPherson are the exceptions, as they won. 

For most people, there’s no refund, just a strong feeling that some staff working on behalf of easyJet and Ryanair – airlines that have some of the strictest policies – are out to get you. 

Ryanair told us the idea that it’s adversarial is ‘absurd’ and pointed to its huge number of customers. EasyJet also argues that increasing passenger numbers is a sign it’s doing something right. The justification airlines often make for forcing us to pay separately for cabin luggage, hold luggage, in-flight meals and seat selection is that it results in cheaper fares for people who want none of those things. 

But are easyJet or Ryanair fares cheaper now than when cabin bags were included in the price? The reality is that low-cost airlines compete to show the cheapest ‘fare’ to attract customers. But if you want to take a cabin bag (or sit with your children), you won’t know the full price of your flight until you get to the fourth page or so of their painfully long and tedious booking journeys. 

Last year, easyJet made around £2.5bn from these extras – 26% of its revenue. For Ryanair, it was €4.3bn – 32%. But the winner in the battle to get customers to pay for extras was the much smaller Wizz Air. It made £2.3bn – a huge 44% of its entire revenue.

Cheapest cabin bag prices almost impossible to find

The discovery of dodgy bag sizers isn’t the first scandal with easyJet’s cabin luggage. Last week we reported that when we looked at almost 1,500 cabin bag prices for easyJet, Ryanair and Wizz, the cheapest prices were almost impossible to find.

EasyJet says that you can take a large cabin bag of the type that Louise carried for £5.99 – but we looked at 520 easyJet flights and didn’t once find cabin luggage available at that price. 

What should I do if I suspect I’ve been overcharged?

Anyone who’s been charged a fee at the gate but feels confident that their bag is the right size should appeal. We’ve heard from other passengers who have also got a refund from easyJet after complaining of unfair charges.

EasyJet has accepted that Louise’s bag was not measured correctly. We know that at least one other customer (the one who sent their photo to Cabin Max) has had the same experience, but we don’t know if it was at the same airport.

We haven’t been able to check where the photo was taken. 

If you sent Cabin Max a photo of a dodgy sizer, or you’ve had a similar experience at Chania Airport or elsewhere, contact us at travelexperts@which.co.uk.

EasyJet response

EasyJet refunded Louise and said that the team in Chania had confirmed that they currently have no damaged gauges.

It said: ‘easyJet’s bag sizers are standardised across all airports to meet our cabin bag dimensions, and we do not see a wider issue with sizer damage, as we have procedures to ensure this is reported by our ground crew to ensure they are removed and fixed. 

'We will always review any feedback from our customers on a case-by-case basis, and so when Ms Machin raised this with us, we apologised for her experience and provided her with a refund.’