Last night (Nov 22, 2010) my girlfriend and I flew from Stansted to Porto by FR 8347. We were one of the last passengers and each carried one carry-on bag and one airport shopping bag containing perfume, chocolates and a small bottle of water. Ryanair's three employees, two men and one woman, started to rush us to put the airport shopping bags inside the carry-ons. While we were doing that, they kept talking among themselves rather amusingly suggesting that it is getting very late for the flight and the carry-on bags should be really checked in, etc (time was 18:12 then and the flight departs at 18:30). Then they rushed us more and took our boarding passes literally from our hands, and insisted that each pay 35 pounds because it is late and our carry-ons may no longer fit or be heavier, etc. We resisted but they were downright rude, forced us to pay 35 pounds each or else... Swissport is the handling agent of Ryanair at Stansted.

Our carry-ons were absolutely legal size, we brought them from Porto without any issues, and chocolates/perfume bought at the airport did not make them larger or heavier. In fact, later we saw many passengers who had entered the plane earlier with much larger carry-ons inside.

Is this another Ryanair scam for making more sales revenue by the end of the year? Rush the last guys and make them pay because there are no passengers behind to witness the scam!

You are blaming the airline because you were late? That's rich.