Last weekend my partner and myself went to Belgium and for this we booked a flight with Ryan Air. We were very surprised of the price that was given. For a return flight from Dublin to Charleroi (Brussels south Airport) we had a total amount of 0.04€ all taxes included. We were a bit suspicious about this price as it is just too low. As my partner works in the airport she knew that hidden costs were going to be revealed.

When you book online with Ryan Air, you can either check in online or go and do the airport check-in (which has an extra fee)

Not only do you have to pay 40€ per bag that you check in but you also get charged for paying online. Laser card is not an option. You can only pay per Credit Card which means that Ryan Air charges a fee of 10€ per person per transaction.

Instead of the 0.04€ that we saw, we ended up paying 20€ (which is still very cheap)

At the end of our long weekend we went back to Charleroi airport in order to take the return flight home. As you may not know, Charleroi is just a small airport were just Ryan Air and one other company operates. Hand luggage is checked thoroughly for size and weight (which is understandable) because if the bag is too big it will not fit into the overhead compartment and when it is too heavy the plane could be overweight and problems could occur whilst taking off.

When it was our turn we asked if my partner could pass next to the x-ray scan as she is 29 weeks pregnant and those machines could cause damage to the baby. This was accepted with a smile. Before doing this the question was asked if we had any liquids in our bags. As we were tired and just drove over 2hr we didn't remember that there was a small liquid in the bag of my partner and right before the bag was going through the scan we told the security officer that we just remembered something was still in the bag. It was just a small deodorant (50ml). The person that was working there at the moment directly answered with: A deodorant is a liquid no? In a voice like saying we are stupid. Then he started to explain us about the plastic bag it needs to be put into and that in Charleroi airport all procedures start and then gets spread out through the world!

As both of us have experience in Tourism and travel, we didn't miss the opportunity to interrupt him and told him that we are frequent travellers and this is the first airport we go to that does not provide plastic bags before entering the security area. Nor let you pay 2€ per bag! His reply to this was that everything starts in Charleroi and expands throughout the world. Our reaction on this was: Sorry to interrupt but doesn't Ryan Air only fly in Europe? And not even in all European countries? So how is this possible that it will be spread out world wide?

After posing those questions the bags were quickly shoved into the scan for us to continue to our gate.

Before reaching the gate we need to go through passport control. As I am in the possession of a Belgium passport this was no problem. My partner is French with French passport, and for some reason the passport reader could read the name of the passport so the officer directly said : There seems to be a problem with this passport!.

He didn't say this in discretion but other people could hear this as well It really was time for us to go back home!

My partner explained him that the passport has travelled a lot and he can check and will see this is a legit one. The officer was not convinced and requested drivers license and other proof of identity. The best question was when he was asking my partner for her green card. I mean how many police officers do not know that Ireland is within the EU and EU citizen do not need a green card to work within the EU.

I replied to this and told the officer that Ireland is EU and no green card is necessary.

Finally we were at the gate where we could wait with impatience to go back home.

To summarize, Charleroi Airport is one of the worst to be in. Not only is the staff unfriendly and acting unprofessionally but they are not enough trained of doing this kind of work. What is sticking out is that they know they have the power to refuse someone from travelling and they are not hiding it.

If you want to go to Belgium I would suggest to land in Brussels airport and not in Charleroi.

Many thanks for letting me experience my feelings about this and thank you for reading this.

Please share your thoughts and ideas

Tags & Keywords : Travel, Europe, Belgium, Airline, Ryanair