Airline bag policies are sexist and this court ruling against Ryanair proves it

It’s a tale of triumph, tenacity, and the timeless struggle of fitting a week’s worth of essentials into a bag the size of a breadbox – passengers from all over the world inched forward in the age-old battle with airline luggage restrictions this week, after one brave passenger took on Ryanair, no less, and won.

The anonymous hero challenged Irish giant Ryanair after they were charged for hand luggage that, according to the court, could “perfectly be transported in the cabin”. But a Spanish court ruled it to be an essential part of air travel, and deemed the fee “abusive”. Ryanair were told they must reimburse the air traveller for hand luggage costs charged on five flights taken between 2019 and 2024.

The win is currently (presumably) being celebrated all over the world. For years, we’ve been at the mercy of arbitrary, inconsistent baggage rules that make travelling a nightmare, or – as evidenced this week – costly. And, while these restrictions clearly affect everyone, there’s also no denying that women are the ones who bear the brunt of them. The system has sexism baked into it from the start.

For a start, the obvious: that women are the carriers of things. The spare charger, the extra hand sanitiser, an extra scarf for the chilly cabin (because higher oestrogen levels mean we also feel the cold more) and socks (for the same reason). We’ve got tampons and underwear stashed in there just in case, an eye mask, earplugs, headphones, books, extra ziplock bags for makeup to go through security smoothly for once, plenty of snacks. Oh, and everything the rest of the group forgot to pack. It’s no coincidence that my partner likes to boast that he “just travels lightly” and then proceeds to spend the rest of the trip asking whether I packed things he “just didn’t think about”.

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Mums, of course, have all of the above plus a whole host of contingency plans rolled up in their backpacks. According to one survey, parents (read: mostly mums) pack a minimum of 11 items – including a first aid kit – for their baby before even leaving the house to pop to the shops; when it comes to air travel, you do the maths. And, while it’s definitely #NotAllDads, it’s widely accepted (and documented) that mothers tend to handle chores, like packing, that require more mental effort – 60 per cent more than fathers, or 7 in 10 household tasks, in fact, says the University of Bath. All of which is to say: those women probably need a bigger bag.

Unlike one of my male friends, who never turns up to an airport more than an hour before his flight, we can’t just roll up with a non-crease suit on, laptop and a wallet and hope for the best. Even if we’re flying in and out for a meeting, we have flats because we can’t travel in heels to pack, top-up makeup to take, and hair accessories (brushes, sprays, tongs, straighteners) to consider, so we don’t rock up to a presentation looking a total state.

Even our physical differences have an impact: a friend tells me that she’s constantly stopped by airline staff suspicious of the size of her cabin bag because it looks disproportionately big on her 5ft2in frame – her 6ft2in husband, she says, is never stopped with the same bag, because it just looks smaller on him.

Let’s not forget that luggage has a rich history of sexism – we could have had the wheely suitcase decades earlier if it hadn’t been for toxic masculinity and macho drivel. In 1970, a New Jersey-based luggage exec patented the first wheeled suitcase after watching a worker effortlessly glide a machine on a dolly through a warehouse. He quickly took a suitcase, clad with castors, into Macy’s department store in Manhattan, to change the world of travel overnight. Only that didn’t happen. Men buying suitcases saw it as a “test of virility” to carry their heavy loads. Wheels were for babies, women and the weak. Investors (male) didn’t buy the concept, and we were stuck with bad backs until the Nineties came around.

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Of all the other well-documented misogyny that the air travel industry still can’t seem to shift – it was only a few years ago that British Airways staff were forced to protest after the airline told female employees they must carry a handbag to work; just last year Spanish airline Vueling were told to pay a passenger €28,000 for denying a woman boarding “because her cleavage was showing” – this one is perhaps the most common.

But, with any luck, with this week’s court ruling on our side, maybe next time it’ll be Ryanair doing the repacking. I rest my (jam-packed) case.