Welcome to Liverpool

I made it to Liverpool last night, but my bag almost didn't make it. Let me rephrase, I almost had to pay for my carry-on bag. If you've never had the experience of flying Ryan Air, you may not understand. Let me explain.

Ryan Air has revolutionized air travel in Europe with low cost flights to most of Europe. There are a few ways that they have been able to accomplish this. First, they have 1 model of airplane. A few days after 9/11, the owner of Ryan Air made the single largest purchase of airplanes from Boeing . . . ever. Every model airplane he bought was the same. What does this mean? One set of maintenance parts, one set of training manuals for the crew, etc. He standardized his fleet.

Second, Ryan Air brokers deals with local municipalities/chambers of commerce to subsidize flights coming into their airports. For instance, Liverpool may pay Ryan Air 100,000 GBP annually to fly into Liverpool. I don't know offhand if Liverpool has a deal like this with Ryan Air, but it is how Ryan Air does business. Why would a city agree to do something like this? It brings in tourism dollars in excess of what they pay Ryan Air.

Finally, Ryan Air charges you a la carte for just about everything under the sun. Want to use a credit card to book? 5 Euro. Want to check a bag? 25 Euro. Forget to check-in online and bring your boarding pass? 25 Euro. Your carry-on bag is oversize? Check it for 25 Euro.

So back to my story . . . as I was boarding the airplane, one of the Ryan Air employees pulled me aside and asked me to check to see if my bag fit into their metal frame. On my first attempt, it didn't fit. I moved some things around. Still didn't fit. I sat there for about 5 minutes rearranging my bag stuffing, kicking, and pushing on my bag to get it into that damn metal frame. It was tight, but by God, I made it fit. Once I got it into the metal frame, it took me another minute or two to get it back out. Meanwhile, people with larger bags than mine walked right past because the frame was occupied by me and my bag.

So a lessons learned for me: 1) Pack light ; 2) Wear layers of clothing on Ryan Air flights so that your bag fits in the frame; 3) Make sure you don't have an odd-shaped bag.