Senior Citizen Complains She Was Shafted For Carry-On Fee While Hot Young Girl With SAME Bag Was Let Onboard Without Payment

A pensioner in the UK laments that she was hit up for a bag fee while boarding her Ryanair flight while a “gorgeous” girl traveling with a nearly identical bag was allowed through without payment.  Is Ryanair guilty of ageism?

Ageism On Ryanair? Older Woman Claims She Was Hit Up For Baggage Fee While Younger, Attractive Woman Was Not Charged

63-year-old Maxine Haughian was pulled aside while boarding her Ryanair flight from Leeds, UK (LBA) to Alicante, Spain (ALC). A Ryanair staffer claimed her carry-on bag was too large…the same bag she has been carrying on Ryanair for 10 years.

But what made Haughian even angrier was when a “gorgeous” young girl was let onboard even though she was traveling with what Haughian called an identical suitcase.

I’m absolutely disgusted with Ryanair! I’ve just been held up for 20 minutes because they said my cabin bag was too big and I must pay an EXTRA £75 for it to go in the hold. Alternatively I can leave it and forfeit the bag and its contents!

It’s funny (not funny) how other bags that are exactly the same were allowed through without comment. It’s a good job I took the photo of this (gorgeous) girl pushing her case into the box and being allowed through. Mine is the pink case and I see no difference whatsoever. I’m obviously not young or good-looking enough!!!!!

Eventually (using the photographic evidence) I was allowed through.

I’m stressed to high-hell and hope I can calm down and get into holiday mode before we land.

Her post went viral and she later told a local news outlet Kennedy News:

“I can’t see what reason there would be for that to have happened — for it to be OK for some people to go through and not for me to go through. And in that instance, the only thing that differentiates us was the fact that that was a young, good-looking female and I’m not young.

“It’s not like I’m some hag or anything, but I am older.”

She felt she was singled out because Ryanair staff assumed older people would be more compliant.

“It was the inconsistency of it all. If you’ve got rules, they should be applied evenly and equally.”

And that last point is reasonable. From the pictures above, we can see that the young woman was also asked to place her bag in the sizer and while her pink bag is similar to the younger woman’s pink bag, it is not clear they were identical.

And while I think the bag was close enough, it did slightly protrude from the sizer…she’s fortunate she put up a fuss and was allowed onboard, because Ryanair is not in the business of charity.

But I think she was on to something in speculating that she was pulled aside and told she had to pay because older British people (though I don’t think 63 makes you a senior citizen…) tend to be polite and follow rules…hey, that’s generally a good thing and Ryanair staff probably figured she would not put up a fuss, unlike the young woman…

Ryanair should treat all passengers equally, even if it is equally bad.

image: Maxine Kelly Haughian / Facbook