When you go through the funnel, adding a cabin luggage (or anything basically) usually doubles/triples the price.
Most of regular airlines include a proper cabin item up to 8kg.
Furthermore, it is not possible to have a just cabin item option in Ryanair's booking website. It is always bundled with things like priority boarding (read: wait outside & standing longer while other people depart from the plane)
Nevertheless, these practices are misleading. Hurts customers more, creates unnecessary complaints and bureaucracy as well.
Because you can in fact pay a regular airline a reasonable price (40-60eur) and get the standard package (with cabin luggage) and get treated like a human being rather than a farm animal. (Btw adding cabin luggage bumps the ticket price 45-55 eur range in Ryanair's case. In a normal airline, you get a beverage & croissant for free while you must pay 5eur for 0.2L water in a Ryanair flight)
not sure this needs regulating
Opt out versus opt in. If most people pay for it, it should be included in the marketed price. (The ones airlines compete most aggressively on.)
This happens to me most of the time on short haul flights in Europe. They basically sell higher priced tickets with two items of cabin luggage and the lower price tier effectively turns into zero items.
FTFA: “Passengers will now be entitled to both a free personal item measuring 40cm by 30cm by 15cm and a small wheeled item with a maximum total dimension of 100cm and a weight of up to 7kg.”
