Ryanair Weight and Balance Issues?
 

I had the misfortune tonight to fly Ryanair from EGSS to LEMG. I see they have reduced their baggage allowance from the normal 20kg to 15kg per passenger and this does not seem simply to be a way of squeezing out a little extra cash as they are charging a penal amount (£14) per extra kilo. Hand luggage is strictly restricted to 10kg.
Once on board, rows two to four inclusive were blocked off even though the flight was full enough that all the remaining seats bar one were occupied. When I queried this, a very pleasant stewardess explained that it was to balance the plane.
Whilst I am aware that Ryanair wants to take extra cash for everything it can (including joke press releases about charging £1 for a pee), I cannot see how cramming people in or restricting their weight allowance achieves this.
So do they have a genuine weight and balance problem that Easyjet and others do not?

Don't know about the blocked off rows but I think quite a few airlines are going from 20kg to 15kg allowance. Certainly the charter airlines. Not sure if the reasons are 'green'/fuel saving or just down to money as most people going for a week in Majorca/Ibiza/Lesbos etc.... can't seem to go without taking 25kg of cr4p with them in coffin size suitcases!

Phil

Not so daft a question as it sounds had the same sort of stuff happen whilst I was connying up and down the UK.
Would be interested in any honest answer...

Baggage allowance
 

22kgs on Jet2.com:ok:

With ref to weight and balance on FR, if you do a search you'll find it's been covered many times.

Ryanair Weight and Balance
 

In order to maintain a 25 minutes turn around Ryanair uses a simplified loadsheet stating:
Rule 1: Mandatory: With 177 pax or less fwd rows 3 and 4 must be blocked
Rule 2: Optional: Both aft and fwd balance limits may be extended by 0,4 units for ZFW and TOW, provided:
a) No pax seated in the fwd 6 and aft 4 seat rows; maximum of 132 pax, or
b) 178 or more pax carried, or
c) Ferry flight (No pax)

Those rules makes it easy and very quick to board the aircraft, hope that gives you an explanation.

CMS, are you sure they weren't reserved for Mikey-the-Pikey's Business Class travellers?

In which case they may as well stay permanently blocked.

If people are stupid enough to fly with Ryanair, they should expect anything which saves the oik a few more cents - irrespective of passenger comfort...

And of course an Aft CG would improve SFC due to reduced trim drag

There are 2 separate issues here. The blocked rows are as listed above - to keep the aircraft within theoretical trim limits.

The baggage allowance is a revenue stream. The loadsheet uses standard weights like every airline. The excess baggage charges are simply ancillary revenue. But the airline are trying to reduce hold baggage where possible.

Many previous threads on this.

Ah, a proper explanation, thank you very much :ok:

It seems the Ryanair stewardesses may be friendlier than you know:

Ryanair Stewardess Reveals She?s Porn Star Edita Bente - XBIZ.com

Perhaps you should consult with the manufacturers FAA certified weight and balance manual. I'll bet a week's wages you will not see any reference to the 25 minute turn around time within the document. But perhaps the IAI has a different slant on this issue:D

The EU standard baggage allowance for checked baggage is 11Kgs Domestic, 13kgs European and 15Kgs International. The 10kgs hand baggage is included in the standard passenger weight (mass).

Subpart J refers.

As Ryanair operates within Europe, primarily, 15kgs baggage allowance is 2kgs more than the prescribed figure for weight and balance.

If Jet2 or any other company allow 22kgs I presume their weight and balance system accounts for this.

I've had similar seat blocking elsewhere but the seat allocation computer does it.

BMI UK domestic flight, about 50 pax on board, Y class only, one of the old BMed A320s (about 120 seats) with substantial club class cabin had been substituted. No pax allowed to sit in the business class seats up front (don't know why not), and to balance things out nobody allowed in the rear 6 rows. Everyone thus squashed 6-abreast abeam the centre of graity.

As most had paid very substantial full fares on this early Monday morning flight, not impressed. Done entirely for operational convenience.

You are confusing average weight (the European allowance) and maximum allowed weight (Ryanair's figure). Quite different items. The European allowance average envisages a proportion of pax with no checked baggage at all. The average figure should be obtained by periodic sampling.

Quote:

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Done entirely for operational convenience

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The consequences of not doing it, and of therefore producing an inaccurate loadsheet are potentially serious for everybody onboard.

Quote:

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As most had paid very substantial full fares... ...not impressed

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Unless people were involuntarily downgraded, didn't you all get precisely what you paid for and therefore have no cause for complaint? The presence of empty Business class seats (or indeed, any other seat) is surely irrelevant?

P.S. - Sorry WHBM - I just read through that lot and it reads like I'm looking for a fight - I'm not. These are just initial reactions to your post and I stand to be corrected!

:)

Spot on Tightslot. The old BMED a/c stil have the old biz seats at the front, but the vast majority of shorthaul routes are economy only, so fare paid is for economy only.

I wasn't making any points about upgrades or anything like that, because it's a one-class service, and as the only cabin service is what you buy there's no issue there either. But to be sat squashed in, separated from colleagues who were slotted in around the cabin while there were plenty of empty seats fore and aft, is just a lack of forethought. I am sure that if they had 120 pax rather than 50 on the sector they would have happily used all the seating, and on any other such low load factor I have flown in the past people were well spread around, as we all know happens. You accept it if the flight is full, of course, or if you pay Ryanair-style fares, or if they had substituted a 50-seat Embraer instead, you will have to sit with your knees up by your ears. This one was two-thirds empty.

Hi WHBM,

The blocked seats have everything to do with center of gravity (as explained above) in combination with the free seating policy. In another airline you may get a boarding card with a seat number. Now the computer has allocated seats and makes sure that everyone gets spread out evenly throughout the aircraft cabin, keeping the center of gravity within limits.

With Ryanair's 'sit where you like' policy, it's theoretically possible -if the plane isn't full- that all passengers will sit towards the front or towards the back of the plane. Basically the only way to keep this situation under control is to block of certain rows. Sometimes 2 rows will be blocked off, sometimes 6 in the front and 4 in the back. It all depends on what the loadsheet requires: it depends on passenger numbers, number of bags and in which holds they are stored and the amount of fuel carried. This makes it impossible to judge from a pax point of view without seeing the actual loadsheet.
This procedure has been designed in cooperation with the aircraft's manufacturer Boeing.

The relevance of the 25 min turnaround quoted above? Free seating policy makes people 'run' for the best seats so boarding goes quicker.

With respect to the reduction in baggage allowance that you mentioned; isn't that reduction compensated by an increase in handluggage allowance?

Hope this helps!

Best regards,

FC

I understand about the importance of getting centre of gravity right, and what can go wrong if everyone bunches at one end of the airframe, but... if 25% of the rows are going to be blocked off, leaving the pax to fill the remaining 75% of seats, then on a load factor of about 70% this means all the seats are essentially taken with pax crammed together.

The obvious conclusion is:

Why would anyone purchase 'priority boarding' from a LCC when they know it will make little different to the quality of the ride they get for 3 hours anyway ?

Priority boarding
 

Priority boarding is used for pax that wants to be seated together, I.E. families with kids, groups etc. or if you would like to be seated either ile or window, maybe you are quite tall and wants the front or emergency rows, nothing to do with having a full row for your self !!