Victory for easyJet passenger after airline admits its luggage size checker was 'faulty' - and refunds nearly £100 in baggage fines

Two passengers were incorrectly charged almost £100 by easyJet for baggage that fit within the airline's official requirements. Adalsteinn Svan Hjelm was flying from Iceland to Greece via London Gatwick with his teenage daughter in April of this year.When travelling through the British hub, the pair's bags were checked in a sizing cage and told by easyJet staff that the luggage did not fit. They were hit with a fee of £48 each – but the Icelandic national immediately suspected something was wrong.'I suspected that the baggage sizer itself had been altered,' he told consumer champion Which?.'The internal side bulkheads appeared to have been positioned incorrectly, reducing the usable width of the sizer and preventing a compliant bag from fitting correctly.'Adalsteinn protested at the airport but staff ignored his argument and collected the £96 fee. Adalsteinn Svan Hjelm was flying from Iceland to Greece via London Gatwick with his teenage daughter when he was wrongly fined for having allegedly oversized luggageHe had no success approaching easyJet's customer service and even lost a claim through easyJet's adjudicator, AviationADR.'What concerns me most is that neither easyJet nor AviationADR independently inspected or physically measured the baggage sizer,' Mr Hjelm said. 'Instead, the decision relied solely on easyJet's assurance that the equipment was correctly configured.'The traveller contacted Samsonite, who made the bags, and was able to confirm the luggage was designed to fit easyJet's sizers. In a last-ditch attempt to resolve the problem, Mr Hjelm emailed members of the carrier's senior leadership team and attached photos that proved the sizer was wrong. Fortunately, a helpful easyJet worker heard him out and launched an investigation into the sizer at Gatwick. In the end, they agreed the metal bars were placed incorrectly and therefore would prevent compliant bags from fitting properly. The holidaymaker received a full refund and easyJet said the sizer would be replaced or fixed. Which? noted that thousands of passengers could have potentially been wrongly fined for their luggage because of the sizer. Commenting on the incident, Rory Boland, Editor of Which? Travel said: 'This is the second time we have caught easyJet wrongfully fining travellers to line their own pockets. Who knows how many passengers have been forced to pay a penalty fee because of easyJet's own ineptitude.'What we do know is easyJet is profiting from fining passengers for bags it claims are oversized, so it's perhaps unsurprising that it has not committed to take any wider action to review how it checks bag sizes.'It was revealed last year that easyJet staff can cash in bonuses for catching out oversized bags. This incident is not the first time that easyJet has been caught out with dodgy bag sizersA spokesman from easyJet said: 'We always want to ensure our cabin bag rules are applied fairly. 'The bag sizers are checked weekly, or sooner if an issue is identified, and maintained and if an issue with a bag sizer is identified, it is reported by our ground crew and removed and fixed.'Despite the independent Aviation ADR ruling in our favour, we have now provided Mr Hjelm with a refund as a gesture of good will.' And it isn't the first time easyJet has been caught out with dodgy bag sizers.Louise Machin was fined €58 at Chania Airport, in Crete, after staff working for easyJet said her bag was too large.'I had successfully travelled out from London Gatwick five days before, and it had fitted into the luggage sizer there with no problem,' she said, adding that she had also checked the bag with the airline's digital sizing tool.The passenger suspected the sizer may be smaller than the requirements but claimed staff 'wouldn't listen' to her. In the end, she contacted her bag's manufacturer who confirmed the luggage should fit and went back to easyJet.The airline refunded her and said staff at Chania Airport confirmed there were no damaged sizers.It told Which?: 'easyJet's bag sizers are standardised across all airports to meet our cabin bag dimensions, and we do not see a wider issue with sizer damage, as we have procedures to ensure this is reported by our ground crew to ensure they are removed and fixed.'We will always review any feedback from our customers on a case-by-case basis, and so when Ms Machin raised this with us, we apologised for her experience and provided her with a refund.'