Ryanair: Passengers As Baggage Handlers?

(MoneyWatch)  Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary suggested today that passengers should ferry their own luggage from airport to airplane -- but still pay ?£5 (about $8) per bag to place them in the hold. O'Leary said that getting rid of baggage handlers would help the budget airline save ?£26 million ($43 million) a year.

"What it means is no more waiting at the carousel, no more losing your bags, no more wasting your life in over-priced airport terminals," O'Leary told The Telegraph.
It's unknown how serious O'Leary is about the new proposal. Similar proposals, like creating pay toilets on planes, have yet to materialize because of their complete impracticality. Similarly, baggage handlers and their unions may have something to say about O'Leary's proposal -- and we haven't even discussed lawsuits. How does one person carry four bags of luggage? And what if they're disabled? I take O'Leary's suggestion as a publicity stunt rather than a legitimate proposal.