The airline, which flies more flights from Jersey than any other operator, will be the first ever in the industry to levy a standard charge for bags to be placed in an aircraft hold.
A minimum charge of £2 per bag for each flight will be levied if the airline is told how many bags are to be checked in at least two hours in advance of travel.
But the charge will double to £4 a bag at airport check-in if there is no advance warning given to the carrier.
The new charges came into effect at midday today and apply to flights to be taken from 1 February next year.
However, the airline is giving something back.
It will cut £1 off the published fare on every route in its network.
It is also doubling from 11l b (5 kg) to 22 lb (10 kg) the weight allowance for hand luggage on flights and increasing the hold baggage allowance to 55 lb (25 kg).
The airline says that if a passenger does not carry checked baggage, they will no longer have to subsidise the cost of carrying other people’s bags and will save £1.
Flybe chairman and chief executive Jim French said: ‘For the first time passengers checking bags on to flights will pay for the service they use rather than the cost being unfairly spread across all people on the aircraft.’ Speed up He added: ‘With passengers pre-booking baggage we will be able to accurately predict the volume to be carried, allowing us to handle flights with exactly the right levels of resource.
This will speed up turnaround times, reduce costs and provide us with much greater operational flexibility.’ The airline says that about 45% of passengers currently carry hand baggage only and it predicts this will increase to 50% when the higher allowance comes into effect.
Similarly, it says that currently just over 55% of travellers check baggage into the hold and Flybe expects this number to drop to about 50%.
Flybe’s sales manager for the south-west UK, Channel Islands and Europe, Laura Millard, said that Flybe were the first low-cost carrier to charge for baggage carrying.
‘It might not be too long before other carriers follow suit,’ she said.
But travel agent Trevor Beckford of Colbacks Travel predicted that the check-in staff were likely to bear the brunt of anger of frustrated travellers.
He said that the move was likely to cause hold-ups at check-in until the public get used to the system.
Mr Beckford also said that although airlines argue that their passengers wanted to see how much was being charged for components of service, he did not agree.
‘The travelling public want bottom-line prices,’ he said.
