Ryanair has advised passengers to “travel light”.  This is their way of indicating that they have put up their fees.

Food and drinks

A beer on board Ryanair will cost €7 from January 2012 because the price of food and drinks will be going up.

Paying with a credit card

If you book online and pay with a credit card, that will cost €15.

Luggage fees

If you pay for a checked-in bag online (for travel in peak periods) the cost will now be €25 per bag, up by €5.  If you do this via their call centre or pay at the airport the fee will be €60 per bag, a sharp increase of €25.

Baggage during “low season” (October to May) will remain at €15 per checked-in bag.

Peak periods for Ryanair are June to September, and over the Christmas holiday.

Carry-on luggage is free but you are limited strictly to one item of 44 litre size, and a maximum of 10kg.

If you regularly travel with luggage you will be interested in the results of an investigation by UK newspaper, The Independent.  They found that if you travel with your partner and two suitcases, it would be dozens of Euros cheaper to fly with British Airways on certain routes than it would be with any of the low-cost carriers.

Reserved seats and Priority Boarding pass

It was also recently announced that seats in the first two rows, or in wing rows with more legroom (rows 16 and 17) can be prebooked at a cost of €10 each way.  This includes priority boarding, where you go on board the aeroplane first.

Children under the age of 16 cannot sit in rows 16 and 17.

If you want just the priority boarding (why?) that will set you  back €5.

Boarding pass

The cost of having Ryanair print, or re-print your boarding pass is being increased to €60, a further €20 over the current price.

Low-cost carriers are geared to having fewer staff  per passenger than the full-service airlines, so anything that requires staffing is going to result in charges.  In order to compare pricing with traditional airlines you should compile a short list of the services that you will require, then add up the costs.  It may be that you would be better off on one of the full-service airlines.