British Airways extends ‘hand baggage only’ fares to all short-haul fare classes

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• Dominic says:

  26 Jul26 July 06:49

  Understand your point about business travellers but in my experience a large majority of business travellers will use hand baggage only anyway, so I think this is a positive move. I’m not so sure that business travellers aren’t so price-sensitive anyway: my company is being pretty tough right now on saving on travel costs and I can see a rule pretty quickly saying ‘if you’re booked on a simple 1-2 day trip then hand luggage only fares will be booked unless you specifically request otherwise”.

• Frenske says:

  26 Jul26 July 06:50

  Are you not forgetting that most business short haul flights are done in economy on normal tickets?
  For example our company decided it is better to pay the fee for changing flights than paying for flexible tickets.
  Hand lugage only tickets are also great a weekend away tourists. If they make it possible to mix ticket type it would be good for groups who might share check in lugage.

  • Rob says:

    26 Jul26 July 09:06

    In my experience not many companies are so enlightened! I have often said in the past in my own career it would make more sense to buy 3 nonflexible tickets on 3 different return flights because it is cheaper than 1 flexible ticket, but it never got anywhere!

• windowseat says:

  26 Jul26 July 07:58

  The price conscious bit of me approves.

  The worry-guts bit of me is fearful that this will downgrade the experience of travelling on BA even further so that it more closely resembles one of the worst aspect of low cost airlines.

  The Ryanair/EasyJet free seating scrum may now have ended with the introduction of allocated seating — but since the arrival of hand luggage only fares its been replaced by the scrum to find space in the overhead bins.

  Basically, if you are not in the front of the queue to get on, then the risk is your hand luggage goes in the hold (hello waiting for it to appear on the carousel at the other end).

• Andy Richardson says:

  26 Jul26 July 08:12

  May be “working” for BA but for me these hand baggage only fares have turned the boarding process into a farce with cabin crew running back and forwards with cabin luggage desperately trying to get it all put away before they miss their slot time. A shame as it was always what set BA apart for me and made the boarding process as stress free as possible when most people had a checked bag inclusive of cost which seemed to curb the cabin stress levels before takeoff with a decent number electing to check a bag.

  • Andrew (@andrewseftel) says:

    26 Jul26 July 08:53

    You’d have to pay me to check a bag on most of my shorthaul travel – you end up losing about half an hour dropping off/collecting and there’s the risk it gets lost or damaged.

    To each their own, I suppose!

    • Andy Richardson says:

      26 Jul26 July 09:51

      Can totally see your point for a business traveller – my few bad experiences were to holiday destinations where I would have normally expected joe public to have checked a bag. Fair play BA though I guess they have done what they had to!

      • Fenny says:

        26 Jul26 July 11:44

        If airlines actually enforced the size restrictions on hand baggage, much of the issue would go. But especially in the US, I see people rock up to the gate with “hand baggage” the size of a small wardrobe. IMO, they should then be charged at least twice the normal price of checked bags for these, due to the hassle of having to put them somewhere they will fit.

        • MrHandBaggageOnly says:

          27 Jul27 July 11:14

          Quite right! Also, if those on board first didn’t waste space by thoughtlessly putting their coat alongside their bag, that would save more time.

        • Rob says:

          27 Jul27 July 11:42

          With the wardrobes coming out of short haul planes you will see more of this!

• Fiona says:

  26 Jul26 July 09:03

  As someone living in Scotland I find it very annoying (and can not see why) that they are not offering it on connecting flights. 99% of my BA flights are EDI to LHR/LGW and then onwards to Europe so I can not take advantage of this.

  • jonboy says:

    26 Jul26 July 10:40

    It would make sense for them to offer hbo if connecting to another route that also offers and hbo fare, I agree.

• Richard says:

  26 Jul26 July 10:26

  Just booked a trip to EDI and the difference between hand baggage only and checked luggage fare was £12. Has the difference gone up recently?

  Also this has been a back door way to price increases. Fares between EDI and London used to be £39 each way. Now only the hand baggage fare let’s you get this fare. So the original fare with luggage has increased. Still, prefer the option to not check luggage and keep the original low fare.

  Worth reminding folk that Avios bookings are all still with luggage.

• Lady London says:

  26 Jul26 July 13:43

  Shurely no one could ever have thought this was anything other than a disguised price rise ?

• Simon says:

  26 Jul26 July 14:08

  Most corporate travel agencies won’t tell their clients about this and continue to charge the more expensive fare (and pocket the extra commission).

  • Stripy says:

    26 Jul26 July 16:11

    And what happens when their client turns up at the airport with a bag to check?

    • Aeronaut says:

      26 Jul26 July 18:16

      They’ll check the bag in.

      Simon isn’t saying corporate travel agents are charging clients for the ‘with bag’ fare and then only booking the HBO fare – that’d be outright fraud.

      • JQ says:

        27 Jul27 July 05:40

        Actually this is quite common in some parts of the world – you book a flexible fare with a travel agent, but they may book you into the lowest fare class and pay the change fees themselves. Not good if you’re relying on a certain fare class to get miles.

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