RYANAIR’S 30m passengers face having to pay for checking in luggage next year, according to Michael O’Leary, the chief executive. The Ryanair boss said the low-fares airline will start charging for luggage put in the hold if its new web-based check-in, to be launched next month, proves a hit with customers.

“It will happen (charging for luggage) sometime next year,” he said. “It’s inevitable. It’s another step in persuading people to travel only with hand luggage.”

Ryanair is not the only low-fares airline planning such a move. Flybe, which mostly flies routes within the UK, has confirmed plans to charge customers for checking in luggage. It plans to levy a fee of up to £4 (€6) for bags placed in the hold.

This would be the latest step in Ryanair’s bid to drive down the airline’s costs. O’Leary said the airline has two options: it could offer lower fares to those travelling with hand luggage only and force those putting anything in the hold to pay higher fares; or it could impose a charge of either €1 or €5 for every bag checked in. “It will encourage a lot of people to stop travelling with checked-in luggage,” he said.

About 50% of Ryanair’s passengers currently travel with hand luggage only. O’Leary wants to increase this figure to 80%, which would enable the airline to halve the number of check-in desks used for its 220,000 flights a year. It would also allow it to reduce the number of baggage handlers required for each flight.

Last year the airline upped the hand-baggage allowance for passengers to 10kg from 7kg in an effort to encourage more people not to check in luggage.

The majority of Ryanair flights involve stays of two days and do not require travellers to carry large amounts of luggage, said O’Leary.

He said Ryanair would introduce the luggage charge across its network in “one fell swoop”, possibly within one month of the web check-in trials beginning. These trials will begin on an internal domestic route, on a route between Ireland and the UK and a route to mainland Europe from Britain or Ireland.

While the charge might seem small, Ryanair could earn up to €75m if half its passengers continued to check in their bags. If O’Leary was to reach his 80% target for hand luggage, the €5 charge per bag would still net the company €30m.

These gains, however, could be offset by lower fares for passengers with carry-on luggage only.

Ryanair last year reduced its checked-in baggage allowance from 20kg to 15kg to discourage customers from putting luggage in the hold.

Under the web check-in scheme, passengers will print off a bar code that will be scanned by machines at airport security. O’Leary said the machines will cost Ryanair about €5,000 per airport.

The move to web-based check-in could save the airline about €30m a year. Ryanair is also considering allowing passengers to book specific seats for an extra charge.