Ryanair has made some major changes to its hand luggage policy: here's all you need to know

You will no longer be able to bring a cabin bag on board without a priority ticket
Ryanair: The airline has cancelled thousands of flights over scheduling issues
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Budget airline, Ryanair, has just made it mandatory for you to buy a priority ticket to bring your cabin bag on-board your flight.

While passengers of the airline can continue to take two bags through the security gate – a cabin bag and a smaller hand-held bag – the cabin bag will be tagged at the gate and will go into the luggage hold if you do not hold a priority ticket.

At your destination, your bag will be unloaded along with all checked bags and you will need to wait for it on the baggage carousel.

The move, Ryanair says, is to improve punctuality as past flights have been delayed due to slow boarding with people finding space for their cabin bags.

Additionally, the fee for checked baggage has been reduced from £35 to £25 to encourage more passengers to check their bags in, which again would hasten the boarding process.

The allowance for checked baggage has also increased from 15kg to 20kg.

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Priority boarding generally costs an extra £5 – which many customers will now be paying for the convenience of having their luggage on board and being able to disembark quickly at the other end.

Passengers who do buy ‘Priority & 2 cabin bags’ may only have a handbag or laptop bag along with their cabin bag – which must not exceed 10kg.

Priority boarding is available to purchase up to 30 minutes before your flight.

Twitter users have certainly been vocal about the change with Derek Jones tweeting: “There was a time when baggage was free so we all checked it in. Then they charged to check it in so we took it on board. But there’s not enough room so they charged for that too. So we go back to checking in our bags... but now we pay for it. See what they did? #Ryanair #Genius.”

Another user, Adam said: “Ryanair's new Cabin Baggage policy is honestly embarrassing. Next they'll charge you for the flight, but if you want to sit down during, you have to pay an extra fee. Simplicity of air travel shouldn't be sold as a luxury add on.”

Well, we guess we’ll all be buying priority now …

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