Ryanair Ban Trunki – Not Allowed as Hand Luggage

Ryanair have waged a war against parents wanting to take a Trunki as free hand luggage on their flights with their children, it’ll now cost £10 per flight to take a Trunki onboard with Ryanair.

For parents all over the world, travelling with children through airports has been made easier when the original Trunki hit the market in 2006. A BBC Dragons Den pitch that set the wheels in motion for a hugely successful business selling luggage specially designed for children to take as carry on luggage onto flights. The real value from the Trunki however came from its dual purpose luggage / ride-on facility. No matter what airport you’re flying from, whether Gatwick South Terminal, Heathrow Terminal 4 or Dublin, getting your toddler from the departure lounge to the gate which might be a 5 minute for an adult, for a toddler with luggage it could take triple. The Trunki enables children to ‘ride-on’ and the handy shoulder strap easily becomes a tow chord making for a swift (and fun) journey for parent and child.

Ryanair New Baggage Policy Bans Trunki

However, the diminutive size of a trunki, just 46cm x 31cm x 20cm is deemed too big to be allowed as ‘free’ carry-on luggage under the new Ryanair luggage policy, a policy verified by Ryanair’s customer service team via their LiveChat facility. We’ve looked at permitted carry-on luggage included within the basic ticket price of the UK's most popular family airlines and found that Ryanair has the smallest permitted luggage allowance and the only airline to ban the Trunki. Ryanair’s permitted carry on luggage (free) is less than a third of that of EasyJet by volume and a Trunki is 50% too large to pass the new Ryanair carry on luggage policy.
 

Have Ryanair Really Banned the Trunki?

Of course not, you can take a Trunki on a Ryanair flight, however much like many of the services offered by the budget airline, it’ll come at a cost. £10 per person, per flight to be precise. That means for families with 2 children, it’ll cost you an extra £40 to use your Trunki.

Ryanair Luggage Hacks

There are of course ways and means for the savvy parent travelling on Ryanair to navigate their new baggage policy and avoid additional fees. Whilst there is no way of getting a Trunki on board for free, you can carry more luggage on a Ryanair flight for free. Parents of young children are permitted to carry a car seat in the hold for free (as do all airlines), so if you want to rent a car seat   (our recommendation), you’ll likely want to protect your child’s car seat in transit and we advise using a car seat travel bag. Not only can you protect your car seat, you can squeeze additional luggage in the bag and get it in the hold for free. As with regular luggage, provided the bag doesn’t exceed 20kg, you’ll be fine. So, whilst you can’t make a speedy exit from the airport at the other end (you’ll need to wait around for car seat on the baggage carousel), you can take up to 20kg of luggage (per child), free of charge on any Ryanair flight.

You are also entitled to take an airport shopping bag into the cabin, so you could purchase a bottle of water from the airport and put some of your hand luggage into the carrier bag to ensure your hand luggage bag fits in the baggage sizer.