Outlaw charges rip-off by airlines and banks

IN her letter (March 9), Marian O’Mullane says her daughter had to pay Ryanair €470 for travelling with 10kg excess baggage.

Her ticket only cost €70, so it would have been cheaper to buy a second ticket.

If the ticket were in her name, there is no logical reason why anyone should prevent her from doing this, but neither logic nor fairness comes into it.

Now that Ryanair has introduced baggage charges, which is certainly fairer on those who travel with hand luggage only, the cost of excess baggage should be the same, not 15 times as much (€20/kg). How can it possibly cost 20 times as much per kilo to carry a bag in the hold as it does to carry a person in the cabin?

Unless charges are related to costs they amount to extortion. If a plumber, for example, quoted €50 for a half-hour job and then charged €800 because it took an hour, he would be prosecuted, so why can Ryanair and the banks impose charges of more than 20 times the cost, especially when banks and airlines are the recipients of government largesse?

Governments should prosecute those responsible and jail them – fining them would be pointless because it would just be passed on to customers.

Michael Job

Glengarriff

Co Cork