Ryanair boss, Michael O’Leary, announced last October that the airline would phase out physical paper passes in favour of digital boarding passes via their myRyanair app. The aim is that the check-in desk will disappear, paperwork will be reduced, and costs will be cut as a result of streamlining the check-in process.
Currently, passengers are asked to check online at least two hours before flight take-off and “either print a boarding pass on a single A4 page or download a digital boarding pass to your mobile phone.”
That is soon to change. Ryanair has now imposed a deadline of November 12th for passengers to get to grips with the digital-only boarding pass rule. After that, passengers must show their boarding pass on their phone.
Ryanair points out that their system “follows other key ticketing industries (like festivals, music and sport events) which have successfully switched to digital-only ticketing”.
For many travellers, using an app is second nature, and the airline says that almost all passengers already use smartphones and benefit from real-time updates on boarding, gates, and delays – with “live notifications from Ryanair’s Operations Centre during disruption.”
Those who don’t have a smartphone will be able to ask a friend to download this for them. And if a smartphone has run out of battery or even been lost, the airline is surprisingly reassuring:
“As long as you’ve checked in before you get to the airport, we’ll reissue a paper boarding pass at the airport free of charge. But you have to check in before you get to the airport. Once you’ve checked in, we’ll have your sequence number anyway at the boarding gate, we’ll take you you’ll get on. So nobody should worry about it.”
Anyone checking in at the airport will be charged a £55 check-in fee.
Note: Currently, airports in Turkey, Morocco, and Albania are not yet on board with mobile boarding passes, and printed boarding passes supplied at the check-in desk will still be necessary to complete their journey.