A travel industry consultant who hit the headlines after she complained that Ryanair had charged her for an ‘over-sized’ carry-on case has won a rare victory.
Catherine Warrilow said Ryanair has refunded the extra £75 she’d had to pay when she’d boarded her flight at London Stansted Airport.
The former Managing Director of the website Daysout.com said she has also received a refund of the £35 extra she’d paid for the same bag on her return flight.
Catherine, now a travel brand consultant, said she’d bought a Priority fare with Ryanair, which allowed her to take a 10kg case onboard, plus a small second bag.
Her larger carry-on case had a second zip which, when unzipped, increased the depth to two centimetres bigger than Ryanair’s allowance, so staff at the gate suggested she removed some items so that the bag would fit in the measuring cage.
“I did so and added a luggage strap so that the case remained compressed to its smallest size and it fit the measure,” said Catherine. “The staff decided that I still had to pay an added £75 because of the potential for it to be bigger.”
Catherine said she ‘reluctantly’ paid, but later shared her experience on TikTok and later spoke on the BBC Radio 2 Jeremy Vine show, where she said: “This ‘added extra’ culture that we find ourselves wrapped up in is crazy.
“The problem is, it’s very unclear. If I’d contacted Ryanair… to check that my case met the standard, then they would have said yes based on the measurements.
“I work in the travel sector, I travel a lot, I know the industry well. And I fear we’re making it very difficult for people to travel without this huge added layer of stress.”
After writing to Ryanair, Catherine said she had received a full refund of the extra paid as ‘a gesture of goodwill’. Ryanair maintains the bag was too big, she said.
