Advertised cheap cabin bag prices from airlines are like finding a needle in a haystack, Which? finds

The consumer champion checked almost 1,500 cabin bag prices for easyJet, Ryanair and Wizz Air across eight different routes per airline to popular holiday destinations and spread out between peak and off-peak dates.

While easyJet, Ryanair and Wizz Air advertise prices as low as £5.99 for carry on luggage (easyJet), Which? found that in the vast majority of cases these prices were not available. In the case of easyJet, Which? challenged the airline to send an example of any flight where you could take a standard cabin bag for £5.99 and they declined to do so. 

Despite Which? gathering 520 easyJet cabin bag prices, it was not available once for the cheapest advertised price of £5.99. The cheapest price Which? found was £23.49, and the average £30 – about five times more expensive than the lowest price claimed. It’s also worth noting that cabin bag fees are one way so for most passengers the cost would be doubled when returning home from their trip.

Which? has taken its findings about easyJet to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), which has said it is now investigating the consumer champion’s complaint.

When Which? looked at Ryanair flights it only found the lowest advertised price, £12, available twice out of 634 flights - 0.3 per cent of the time.

It was a similar story for Wizz Air’s €10, available just twice on the 338 flights Which? checked - 0.6 per cent of the time.

The average fee for Ryanair was £20.50 and for Wizz Air £28.93. One bright spot was that the consumer champion also did not find the top price for a cabin bag Wizz Air advertises – a scarcely believable €163, each way when Which? checked (Wizz Air have since reduced this to €130). 

A cabin bag in addition to a small, free underseat bag is likely to be considered an essential by many passengers, but these extra charges often don’t appear in the headline price, making it difficult to compare the true cost of flying with different airlines - many of which still include a standard cabin bag in the fare. Which? believes that airlines should be upfront about these costs, so that travellers know exactly what they are paying for. The airlines’ failure to provide transparent fees means consumers don’t know what they are paying until they have gone through multiple stages of the booking process. Often, the final price of the bag may end up being more than the original ticket. 

Budget airlines’ failure to provide transparent fees has led to pushback in Europe. In November last year, Spain’s Consumer Rights Ministry fined five budget airlines €179 million (£149 million) for what it called ‘abusive practices’ around luggage. In June 2025, the European Parliament’s transport committee voted that travellers should be allowed to take a standard cabin bag, of a minimum size on all airlines, for free. If ratified, the law would affect flights to or from the EU. 

Aside from murky cabin bag prices, passengers are also falling victim to fines at the gate. This summer it was revealed that some airline staff were paid a bonus for every oversized bag they catch. Ryanair has recently increased the bonus to €2.50 for charges that can be up to £75 per bag. EasyJet has been more coy but admits that its ground crews also get bonuses.

Rory Boland, Editor of Which? Travel, said:

“Our research shows that the tens of millions of passengers who need to take a cabin bag will pay much more than the cheapest price advertised - rather than a few pounds, prices for bags can often be more than the flight itself.

“The tactics used by these airlines deserve to be called out, that’s why we have shared our findings with the regulator.”

ENDS

Research

Research was carried out on eight popular routes for each airline on four separate dates in August, November, December and February. 

The consumer champion checked almost 1,500 cabin bag prices for easyJet, Ryanair and Wizz Air across eight different routes to popular holiday destinations and spread out between peak and off-peak dates.

Right of replies:

A spokesperson for easyJet said: “easyJet’s bag options and pricing is transparent and well understood by our customers, allows them to pay for only what they want and no more and enables us to keep fares low for everyone. This year 100 million passengers are choosing to fly with us and with our customer satisfaction scores up year on year, it’s clear that customers continue to value the choices that we offer.”

A Wizz Air spokesperson said: “Wizz Air flies over 75 million passengers each year, so a sample of 350 flights isn’t representative of cabin bag pricing across our full network. Given the small sample and the fact we’ve had no visibility of the data, we believe it is potentially misleading.”

“Bag prices vary by route, season and demand. These variables mean that showing a price range is the only feasible option. These rules are standard practice across the industry and have been put in place to manage both safety regulations and the varying operational costs. Due to limited cabin space, it’s simply not possible for every passenger to bring a large carry-on and one oversized bag reduces the space available for everyone. 

“At Wizz Air, our bag pricing is transparent and fully compliant with consumer protection laws. Every ticket includes a free under-seat bag, and customers can choose to add larger luggage if they wish. That way, our customers only pay for what they need which we believe is a fairer, more sustainable model than a one-size-fits-all approach. We make luggage pricing clear across multiple touchpoints and always encourage customers to purchase large cabin baggage directly and in advance to secure the best price.”

A spokesperson for Ryanair said:

As usual this Which? research is total rubbish.

1.         Ryanair operates over 100,000 flights each month or over 1.2m flights annually so your “survey” of just 600 flights is statistically too small to be representative or accurate.

2.         Even taking your own tiny sample, you found an ave price of £20.50 which suggests there are far more £12 Priority Boarding sold than the £36 PB.  This undermines your false but invented concerns about consumer protection which of course are false.

3.         Priority Boarding services on Ryanair are transparent, and OPTIONAL.  If customers don’t like the pricing of PB then they can choose to decline it. The PB pricing varies by route and by day because demand varies by route and by day.  There is every reason NOT to have a “set price” as Which falsely claims, because variable pricing allows us to discount Priority Boarding to stimulate consumer demand, which is why more £12 PB’s are sold than £36 PBs.

4.         Finally, your absurd but FALSE claims that Ryanair’s cabin bag policy is “adversarial” or has “alienated large numbers of customers” is yet another complete fabrication by Which? when (a) you have offered no evidence of any interaction with a “large number” of our 206m customers (how many Ryanair customers have you actually spoken to?) and (b) since Covid, Ryanair’s traffic has grown by 40% from 148m to 206m customers annually so the factual position is that Ryanair customers are flocking to us in their millions, and have no problems with our optional and fully transparent bag policies.  They clearly don’t waste any time reading Which?’s fake news or your false ‘click bait’ claims but then everyone knows that these fake Which? stories have zero credibility or accuracy.

Notes to Editors:

Research was carried out on eight popular routes for each airline on four separate dates (August, November, December and February). 

Which? looked at eight routes per airline. 

easyJet:

• Athens
• Lisbon
• Paris
• Antalya
• Barcelona
• Gran Canaria
• Larnaca
• Milan

Ryanair:

• Athens
• Barcelona
• Gran Canaria/ Nice when Gran Canaria was not available
• Porto
• Paphos
• Rome
• Tenerife
• Madrid

Wizz Air:

• Palma
• Krakow
• Budapest / Antalya when Budapest was not available
• Athens 
• Istanbul
• Larnaca
• Milan
• Rome

Our price research

Since Which?’s checks, Wizz Air have changed their pricing, it is now €14-€130. 

What you can do if you are fined at the gate:

• Insist that the bag is checked in the sizer and turn it around if it doesn't initially fit.
• Take pictures of the bag in the sizer at every angle, and alongside a tape measure when you get home.
• Send your evidence to the airline through its online complaint form.

About Which?

Which? is the UK’s consumer champion, empowering people to make confident choices and demand better. Through our research, investigations and product testing, we provide trusted insight and expert recommendations on the issues that matter most to consumers.

Fiercely independent, we put people over profit - shining a light on unfair practices, influencing policy and holding businesses to account to make life simpler, fairer and safer for everyone.

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