Airport staff are cashing in on bonuses for catching easyJet passengers with oversized bags, a leaked email has revealed.
The email, sent to employees of Swissport, which runs passenger gates in several airports in Britain, confirmed that staff would receive £1.20 (£1 after tax) for every ‘gate bag’ deemed too large to take onboard without paying extra.
This controversial ‘easyJet gate bag revenue incentive’ is still active, rewarding gate agents for enforcing baggage rules at airports including
Belfast
,
Birmingham
,
Glasgow
, Jersey, Liverpool, and Newcastle.
The scheme aims to ‘reward agents doing the right thing’ with direct payments to employees, according to the internal message signed by Dean Martin, a Swissport station manager at
Glasgow Airport
, seen by the Sunday Times.
Similar bonus arrangements also exist at other airports, with DHL
Supply Chain
staff at
Gatwick
, Bristol, and Manchester receiving a ‘nominal amount’ per oversized bag spotted.
Passengers are allowed one small bag free with easyJet, but larger bags must be paid for, with fees starting at £5.99 and soaring to nearly £33 on some routes.
At the gate, if caught with an unpaid oversized bag, travellers face a £48 charge, of which £1.20 goes directly into the pockets of airport staff.
Many passengers have complained about aggressive enforcement and inconsistent sizing, sometimes being forced to pay despite bags fitting official size frames.
Ground staff are employed by third-party handling companies, which vary between airports.
These companies manage staff pay and incentive schemes independently, and easyJet is not involved in or responsible for how bonuses are issued.
A Swissport spokesperson emphasised that the company follows airline policies under agreed terms, focusing on professionalism and delivering safe, efficient operations across millions of flights each year.
An easyJet spokeswoman said: ‘easyJet is focused on ensuring our ground handling partners apply our policies correctly and consistently in fairness to all our customers.
‘Our bag policies and options are well understood and we remind customers of this when booking, before they travel and on their boarding pass which means a very small proportion of customers who don’t comply will be charged at the airport.’
Swissport was approached for comment.
It comes as Ryanair has announced plans to boost the size of its free ‘personal bag’ allowance.
The budget airline currently lets passengers bring a small bag measuring 40x20x25cm for free, but that’s about to change.
Ryanair will soon let holidaymakers carry bags up to 40x30x20cm, a 20% increase, following new EU rules that set a minimum free baggage size of 40x30x15cm.
The bigger allowance kicks in within weeks once Ryanair updates its bag sizers.
Bags still must weigh under 10kg and fit under the seat.
But even with the upgrade, Ryanair’s free bag is smaller than easyJet’s current generous allowance of 45x36x20cm.
The EU is cracking down to make luggage rules simpler for passengers across all airlines.
It follows a man who 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 at 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 the money and made him delete all the footage he had taken.
Video filmed by Jake 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.
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