Ryanair has criticised the UK Department of Transport’s latest guidance for passengers to check in all bags including hand luggage as”rubbish”. 

The low-cost airline has said that it signals “more nonsensical advice from the DOT which continues to oversee a completely ineffective and useless 14-day quarantine”.

Ryanair instead recommends that passengers should minimise checked-in luggage, in favour of carrying one or two pieces of cabin bags, arguing that cabin bags are handled only by the passenger and so therefore eliminates any risk of physical contact with other persons.

The airline sets a maximum of bags allowed into the cabin, which ensures that the boarding process speed is not affected.

By contrast, checked-in bags are handled by multiple different persons at check-in, in baggage holds and while being loaded on to and out of aircraft holds.

A Ryanair spokesperson said: “In attempting to minimise physical contact during the travel process, particularly on short haul flights, Ryanair recommends passengers to minimise checked-in bags and, where possible, confine themselves to one or two carry-on bags (1 large, 1 small for customers with Priority boarding) which minimises physical contact with other persons.

“The UK DOT should stop issuing rubbish advice to passengers about baggage and instead focus their efforts on scrapping the UK’s useless visitor quarantine which the UK Home Office now admit cannot be implemented, supervised or policed effectively.

“Ryanair is going back flying with 1,000 daily flights from 1 July. Recent bookings show how UK customers are largely ignoring this useless visitor quarantine as they book in their thousands to holiday destinations in July and August”.

Last week, the UK Government introduced a mandatory 14-day quarantine for all UK arrivals from 8 June as part of measures to restrict the spread of the virus.

Following this, Ryanair, Easyjet and British Airways wrote to the government’s top legal officer urging for the withdrawal of the new mandatory quarantine measures, arguing it will have “a devastating effect” on the UK tourism industry.

Visit ryanair.com for more information.