My suitcase was destroyed on a Ryanair flight but it won’t pay-up

In April I traveled with Ryanair from Manchester to Palma, Majorca, paying extra to check in a bag.

On my return to Manchester Airport I took my suitcase off the carousel and it was broken.

It was a hard case and one of the wheels had broken off along with the surrounding plastic, leaving a hole in the bottom of the case. Suffice to say it is no longer usable.

I asked an airport employee what to do and they told me to go to the Ryanair counter. I did – but no one was there.

I waited 15 minutes, but then had to leave to catch my taxi home. The flight was delayed, otherwise I could have waited longer. I took a picture of the empty desk and called Ryanair from the taxi 20 minutes later.

Since then I have had several phone calls, emails and online chats with Ryanair and have seemingly gone through every department.

It says it won’t pay for my broken bag because I don’t have an ‘irregularity report’ reference number. It tells me this should have been given to me at the airport.

But I was not aware of that at the time and there was no one at the desk to tell me. SS, Manchester

Helen Crane from This is Money replies: We’ve all experienced it. Waiting patiently at the carousel, that horrible feeling in your stomach that your precious luggage won’t arrive.

Almost as bad as that is a battered briefcase that looks like it’s done 12 rounds with Mike Tyson – not the ideal return after a break in the sun.

I recently took a Ryanair flight myself and was shocked at how much extra passengers now have to pay to bring a decent size suitcase. In my case it was more than the cost of my return ticket to Portugal.

Some might say that’s the price you pay for traveling on a low-cost airline, but now some of the more expensive companies are joining in as well.

After paying through the nose for the privilege of just taking luggage on vacation, you must have been furious when yours didn’t even come back in one piece.

Accidents happen, but if baggage handlers destroyed your luggage, an airline should pay you to replace it – especially if it’s traveling on a more expensive ticket than you.

I think Ryanair has been unfair in refusing to contact you without a reference number.

This had never happened to you before, so how were you supposed to know what to do? And even if you knew, no one was at the Ryanair counter to file the report. Who knows how long you’ve been languishing there.

You say you tried to use a customer phone at the Ryanair counter but got no one to help.

But after 15 minutes of waiting you had to leave, because you booked a taxi home and your friend had a train to catch.

Missing that one would have meant investing even more money into what was already becoming a pretty expensive trip home.

You decided to take a picture of the empty desk, to prove you weren’t just walking away.

But none of this was enough for Ryanair, because you didn’t have that all-important reference number, leaving you with about £60 for the case.

While it wasn’t the most expensive piece of luggage, you don’t want Ryanair to get away with this and I agree.

It makes me wonder how many people have simply given up on ever getting the money back for their battered bags, faced with filling out forms, repeating reference numbers, and giving them to countless different departments on the phone.

I decided to contact the airline and explain your situation. Surely it could show that you did your best to get your suitcase in order at the airport?

I regret to report that this is not the case, disappointingly referring you back to the terms and conditions.

A spokesperson said: “Under Ryanair’s terms and conditions, which this passenger agreed to at the time of booking, “any lost, delayed or damaged checked baggage must be reported to the Lost and Found desk at the arrival airport”, which has a PIR will provide number to make a claim with.

“As this passenger has not been issued a PIR number for her damaged bag by the Lost & Found desk at Manchester Airport, our customer service team is unable to process her claim.”

That is not good enough in my opinion.

Perhaps the next time you fly Ryanair – if this situation hasn’t put you off – you’ll decide to stick to hand luggage. It costs the world nothing and that way you can at least keep an eye on it.