Ryan Air and bike bags

disgruntledgoat

I'm off to the Pyrennees tomorrow morning! And am having some stress with my bike bag. Ryan Air's website says they won't accept anything longer than 119cm or taller than 81cm. My bag is 130cm long and 90cm tall.

Never flown with this particular set of shysters before so... Any horror stories I should be aware of?

Bodhbh

disgruntledgoat wrote:

I'm off to the Pyrennees tomorrow morning! And am having some stress with my bike bag. Ryan Air's website says they won't accept anything longer than 119cm or taller than 81cm. My bag is 130cm long and 90cm tall.

Never flown with this particular set of shysters before so... Any horror stories I should be aware of?

Hrmm I never noticed the dimension requirement before, this is new? I noticed they've also put the price up from 25 quid each way to 40 quid since I booked my flight.

I flew with them out of Stansted about a month ago. No problems. I used a CTC bike bag and did what is recommened on the Ryanair site and adviced on the CTC site (pedals removed, handlebars turned around, seat pushed down, deraileur removed).

Point I did get a bit nervous was when they tried to get my bike thru the X-ray machine. I think it was only a little under 1metre in height and they had some trouble to get in through. They were not jobsworths and forced it through, they could have been arkward at that point. I would think as long as you make it easy to get thru the machine which afaik is 1metre wide there shouldn't be a problem.

nickwill

I rode the Raid pyrenean last September and flew with Ryanair. The dimensions were stated then in the small print on the website. I rang them to query the point and was told that as long as the bike was in a proper bike bag, there would be no problem..
I had no problems at all, and saw some enormous bike bags/ cases at the airport!

jc4lab

Are you sure you have got your facts right...Always thought you can take a bike and theres an add on when you book of about £30 or so per flight...At worst Id expect a supllemenmt to pay if you havent paid it and just turn up . but then you dont know what Hitlerlike staff may be on till you get there....A bit of luck will be Ok...Best get there as early as poss..

disgruntledgoat

Well, at the airport now and they didn't even look twice at it! No problems at all. Although, and I know this will shock you all, a frenchman did push ahead of me in the queue.

Philip S

Let us know how you get on at the other end as well - I'm thinking of doing the same later in the year, but will be a complete novice in terms of the bike bag on planes thing...

Have a great trip!

cycladelic

After doing the Ppyrenees, I flew with Ryanair from Barcelona - actually Girona - last week and they made me have it wrapped in clingfilm at the airport, which cost me 8 euros. I also had to remove the front wheel for some reason.

larmurf

disgruntledgoat wrote:

Never flown with this particular set of shysters before so... Any horror stories I should be aware of?

A bit harsh I would say especially when you have no experience of the airline.
I have travelled with them on a number of occasions and haven't had any problems and some good bargains. 72 Euro return Dublin Mallorca being the latest.

cycladelic

Be warned about printing the 'boarding pass'... I thought I had printed it out at the hotel but Ryanair charged me 40 euros at Girona for doing it. The piece of paper I had was just some confirmation - the website is very confusing. I estimate half the flight had done the same thig. That's a good earner for Ryanair.

xio

I'd rather stick pins in my eyes than fly Ryanair these days (I've had plenty of experience). As for their baggage policy and that shyster O'Leary, I'm assuming that as the small print says they don't guarantee to put your bag on the flight you're on, and also how actively they discourage you from taking any hold luggage at all, we're only a short step away from the stage where they decide it's more cost effective to only put hold luggage on alternate flights. And being Ryanair, they're hardly going to deliver it to your hotel in any useful timeframe either. Not that I'm bitter or anything. And I've never even taken a bike on a Ryanair flight...

Wait for Swiss to lose my bike box on Saturday now after that ;-)

cycladelic

I flew from Oslo to Glasgow last week. Oslo (Torp) is a dinky airport and the staff there didn't care that my bike wasn't bagged or boxed. They also let me get away with my check-in bag being a couple of kilos over the limit.

I think service really depends on where you fly from.

BTW - the Ryanair flight was zero pounds!... just had to pay the usual bike and bag fees.

APIII

cycladelic wrote:

I flew from Oslo to Glasgow last week. Oslo (Torp) is a dinky airport and the staff there didn't care that my bike wasn't bagged or boxed. They also let me get away with my check-in bag being a couple of kilos over the limit.

I think service really depends on where you fly from.

BTW - the Ryanair flight was zero pounds!... just had to pay the usual bike and bag fees.

Yeah, and the check-in fee, the payment fee(????)........
My £12.99 flights ended up costing £165 in the end, even with hand luggage (took the bike though). I wouldn't mind so much if they were a bit more honest with their charges. £165 is still a reasonable price, but you end up feeling aggrieved because you have to pay them a fee to accept your money! madness :evil:

cycladelic

With my bike, one (big) check-in bag, and the online booking fee - the bottom line was 50 quid.

APIII

Is that one way? I got charged £60 return for my bike alone.

cycladelic

Yep - one-way. it's 30 a pop for a bike.