Up, Up And Away! Is Ryanair’s Strict One Bag Policy Being Scrapped This Year?

The days of us stuffing our handbags to the brim with our travel necessities and wearing a multitude of layers to get our suitcases past the dreaded Ryanair luggage size slot at the departure gates could be over, if the MEPs get their own way.

Europe's parliamentarians want to stop airlines such as Ryanair from stopping passengers bringing more than one piece of hand baggage on to flights.

Most people are familiar with Ryanair’s strict rule of only one item of hand luggage per person in the cabin.

MEPs have announced that they want flying rules across the European Union to be standardised and regulated, which could mean Ryanair will have to stop disallowing passengers to bring duty-free purchases onto the flight along with their hand luggage.

The low-cost airline will have to scrap their extra fees this year.

However, in a statement from Ryanair, they explained that the carry-on bag rule is necessary for safety reasons. The airline also rejected many of the claims made by a number of “poorly briefed MEPs in the European Parliament yesterday”.

On Ryanair flights, single items of hand luggage cannot weight any more than 10kg. The airline explained that they operate with very high load factors and a second carry-on bag is not allowed for passenger safety reasons.

Passengers can be forced to pay an extra €50 to have over-sized hand luggage placed in the hold.

It was the British Labour MEP Brian Simpson, the chair of the European Parliament’s Transport and Tourism Committee, made the original call for the new set of rules.

He said yesterday that while he was aware that cabin baggage rules had to reflect different aircraft types, his concern is that "certain airlines look to charge for everything".

Ryanair’s Stephen McNamara said: “The inaccurate claims made by some MEP’s yesterday that Ryanair’s free of charge carry-on bag policy was designed to “generate revenues” were absurd and untrue. 

“Ryanair’s 1 carry-on bag rule cannot be changed for safety reasons.  It would be helpful if these MEP’s made some basic attempt to understand Ryanair’s safety and low fare policies before making false and inaccurate claims in the European parliament. “

The European Commission said they are to revamp air passenger rights later this year.