And now the Ryanair guide to smart packing - especially if you're a Belgian student

AIR TRAVEL: RYANAIR HAS posted a YouTube video as a riposte to striking Belgian students who staged a mutiny over luggage charges…

AIR TRAVEL:RYANAIR HAS posted a YouTube video as a riposte to striking Belgian students who staged a mutiny over luggage charges.

The video, complete with Benny Hill music, is a tutorial on how to pack a 10kg carry-on bag for a fortnight’s holiday – the video lasts for about one-and-a-half minutes.

It shows how to best fold T-shirts inside shoes and in between jeans to make the most of the space in the average carry-on bag.

A sizeable holiday wardrobe disappears into the bag which zips up easily without having to be sat on.

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More than 100 students refused to get on a Ryanair flight from Lanzarote to Charleroi in solidarity with a colleague who was asked to pay a “gate fee” for a piece of outsized luggage that he was carrying.

After a stand-off between airline staff and the students, the police were called and the whole plane had to be unloaded and then reloaded again.

The incident led to students, most of them from the University of Brussels, spending the night in the terminal at Lanzarote on Saturday last week.

Only 64 of 168 passengers were on the flight when it eventually took off. The rest had to make their own way home.

The airline said it posted the video to stop the students embarrassing themselves and the country by not complying with Ryanair’s policies on hand luggage.

Ryanair spokesman Stephen McNamara said Belgian universities should add the online tutorial about packing to their curriculum and also teach their students how to respect hotel accommodation and not be a “general menace to other holidaymakers”.

  • See the video at youtube. com/watch?v=klNLqDpdYLI
Ronan McGreevy

Ronan McGreevy

Ronan McGreevy is a news reporter with The Irish Times