A MAN has slammed easyJet after being hit with a £48 fine for his bag being too large – despite the fact it fitted perfectly into the airline’s baggage size checker.
Jake Hughes was attempting to board his flight in Manchester Airport on Wednesday but clashed with a member of staff who insisted his hand luggage was too big.
Despite demonstrating to staff that this wasn’t the case, Jake claims the budget airline threatened to “terminate” his boarding pass if he didn’t cough up with the money and made him delete all the footage he had taken.
easyJet has since been in touch with Jake to try and remedy the situation.
Video filmed by Jake during his ordeal shows the bag – a small grey holdall – inside one of the metal frames used by easyJet to measure cabin bag size, fitting neatly into the space.
Jake points at it and says: “This bag fits perfectly in here. easyJet flight.”
The staff member, who appears to work for an external handling company on behalf of the airline, asks him to remove it.
He initially reaches for it but decides to leave it in and asks to speak to somebody more senior.
He says: “No, I’m actually going to leave it in there. I need a manager to see this. Someone higher up than you to see this.”
A queue of passengers can be seen waiting with their bags to his side.
He gestures to the size frame on the other side, but the staff member claims it is only for passengers entitled to “speedy boarding”.
Jake repeats: “So this is my bag, I need a manager here.”
The staff member suddenly claims that he himself is the manager and asks Jake to remove his bag.
Jake says: “Where’s the manager status on you? Come on man, I’m not trying to be difficult, I’m just saying £48 for that is ridiculous.
“I bought this bag especially because it’s an easyJet bag.”
After being asked again to remove his bag because there are other passengers waiting, Jake finally relents.
He adds: “You saw it fits though, yeah?”
The staff member replies: “No.”
Clearly exasperated, Jake insists it does and moves to put it back in.
The footage then cuts to Jake filming the staff member from his seat on the plane.
He claims the man charged the majority of passengers and told them that they couldn’t board the flight if they didn’t pay.
He adds that staff had reportedly started to “terminate” his boarding pass before he gave in and paid – but not before he was allegedly made to delete all the footage he had taken.
However, he appears to have backed up or recovered it and shared this video to social media on Wednesday with the caption: “easyJet staff made me delete all of this footage or I wasn’t allowed to board.”
It has since received over 53,000 likes and more than 3,000 comments from Brits left outraged at the situation.
One said: “Do they get commission or something?”
Another wrote: “Same thing happened to me.
“[The] Woman said I had to pay because I ‘forcefully pushed’ my bag in so it would fit, and that the rule is the bag has to ‘comfortably’ fit the dimensions.
“Utter bulls**t.”
A third commented: “This may well be criminal by easyJet. Gaining money by deception. It’s fraud.”
Another said: “We had this same problem last week, they charge[d] us £48 going out the country and I think it was £42 on the way back, it’s disgraceful.”
A fifth added: “I refuse to fly easyJet or any of those other ‘low cost’ airlines. I’ve got enough headache[s] in my life to be dealing with their nonsense.”
Speaking today a spokesperson for easyJet said: “We are investigating with our ground handling provider at Manchester airport to understand why Mr. Hughes was charged for his bag which appears to be in line with his allowance, and we have been in touch with him to refund the charge.”
