Cabin bags and seats can quadruple the cost of some ‘cheap’ flights

Flights advertised as costing just £30 or less can turn out to be more than four times as expensive.

We looked at 15 apparently ultra-cheap flights from easyJet, Ryanair and Wizz. They could all cost a family hundreds of pounds more if they wanted to take a cabin bag each, rather than just a bag that must fit under the seat, and guarantee sitting together.

It means that low-cost airline fares can appear cheaper than those from competitors such as British Airways and Jet2, but that's not necessarily the case once you include the cost of a cabin bag and seating. We found some BA fares cheaper this summer, once you factored in extras.

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Wizz Air flights that cost four times as much as they first appear

The cheapest return flight we looked at, from London Luton to Lyon in France with Wizz, cost just £29 per person. But if you want to add a cabin bag and guarantee sitting next to your travel companion, it sends that price soaring to £124 per person – more than four times as much.

On the cheap flights we looked at, prices ranged from £57 to £95 for taking an ordinary cabin bag and paying for seat selection.

For more expensive summer-holiday flights from Wizz, cabin bags and seat selection could easily cost well over £100 per person. On five pricier flights we looked at, this was around a third of the cost of the fare.

If you want to check a suitcase into the hold, that will be even more.

Higher luggage prices at peak seasons – or depending on where you fly?

It’s impossible for passengers to know how much they'll be paying for their fare when they start to book a flight. Instead, they find out midway through the booking process where they add on any extras.

Wizz Air told us that prices of its add-ons are dynamic and vary depending on the destination, the date of your flight and when you book. It added: ‘Optional add-ons are not required to fly, and we believe that customers should be offered the choice and flexibility to choose the right products.’

Not so cheap Wizz Air flights

Cheap easyJet and Ryanair flights that cost twice as much as they first appear

The easyJet and Ryanair flights we looked at ranged in price from £33 to £55, but they were almost all more than twice as expensive if you want to take a cabin bag and guarantee sitting next to your travel companion.

When we spoke to easyJet, it told us that passengers benefit by only paying for extras that they want, rather than ones they don’t want. It also said that its seating system is programmed to seat families together, without them having to pay.

Our research does suggest that this is true, and there’s little point paying to sit next to your partner or family with easyJet. Almost 90% of people in our airlines survey who booked together were seated together automatically. With Ryanair the figure was 62%.

Will British Airways, Jet2 and Wizz split up friends and families who don’t pay for a seat?

Ryanair charges parents to sit next to children

Both easyJet and Wizz say they will seat children near their parents automatically for free – and in most cases they’ll be on the same row. Passengers can make it more likely that they’re seated next to their children (particularly under-12s) by checking in early.

However, the fact that some airlines don't guarantee that families will be seated next to each other (especially those with older children) does mean that many people will feel obliged to pay for seat selection.

Ryanair insists that at least one parent has to pay to ensure they’re alongside any child under 12 years old.

This price was £8 on various occasions when we checked, although it can be more if all the cheapest seats have been taken.

Ryanair told us: ‘The price of Ryanair’s seat selection starts from €4. . .We don’t charge parents to sit with children. Rather, the child seats are provided free of charge when they sit beside one parent, who must reserve a seat for a fee.’

Our research

In July 2024, we searched for cheap return flights on the three airlines above. We then checked the cost for Wizz Air’s ‘Smart’ option and Ryanair’s ‘Regular’ – both of which provide standard seat selection and priority boarding, and allow you to take a trolley bag to put in the overhead locker.

For easyJet we checked the basic price and then added standard seat selection, cabin luggage and priority boarding (its Standard Plus tickets have slightly different offerings than the other two airlines).