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Michael O'Leary actually explained this. They simply do not want people coming to the airport and having to print their boarding pass and want to incentivize pe

Michael O'Leary actually explained this. They simply do not want people coming to the airport and having to print their boarding pass and want to incentivize people doing online checkin as much as possible. €55 is a rounding error to even Ryanair. If you didn't do this; and it was say a more reasonable €5 - or even free, you'd get a lot of people coming to the airport without a boarding pass. This is actually super expensive to offer, because it's not the cost of staff itself, it's the fact you need to rent a desk off the airport, and it turns out airport desk space is _not_ cheap. Flights are often very peaky too, so you might need 5-10 check in desks to cover the morning rush, which are then empty for the next few hours. Or don't and you get hammered in the press for huge queues and people missing flights because it took an hour to print a boarding pass. This EU legislation is also poorly thought through. As many have said I've often done same day or one night trips for work where I do not need anything past a backpack. Now a lot of people will take cabin baggage that could have otherwise took a rucksack, but the problem is a high density LCC airplane configuration does not have enough overhead luggage space for that. So now you need to check it in, which is expensive for the airline and time consuming for the passenger. It would be far simpler for them to require flight fares/price comparison sites to include one piece of overhead cabin baggage in the cost, with a discount available (but no ability to advertise that price until late in checkout). This would allow comparisons to work properly across airlines, which is what I assume was the end goal here. Either way it's not a big deal and I don't think should have been a priority for the EU.

paxys 1y ago
Nope, all bullshit. - The fee is absolutely not a rounding error to Ryanair. We are talking about tickets that cost €9-15. They rely on these extra charges to make their money back. - They already have counters at the airport. In fact you have to go to them to drop off check in bags and/or weigh your carry ons. - Mobile boarding passes already exist, and most other airlines use them. If it was really about cost savings Ryanair & co. would embrace them fully.
- martinald 1y ago
  Ryanair already has mobile boarding passes and have done for I want to say at least 10 years? You honestly think Ryanair makes serious money from reprinting boarding passes? I doubt I have ever seen anyone at the Ryanair ticket desk at STN for example. That compares to the 50k+ passengers a day that go through STN on Ryanair. Baggage charges of course, as is with food, but boarding passes is not a money maker for them. Those counters don't typically print tickets, it's a different "ticketing" counter.
  - m000 1y ago
    > Those counters don't typically print tickets, it's a different "ticketing" counter. WTF are you talking about? (a) Ticketing counters sell tickets. (b) To print a boarding pass you just need a printer, which is already present on ALL baggage drop off counters. It is the same printer that prints the baggage labels.
    - martinald 1y ago
      Most LCCs make you go to a ticketing counter to print boarding passes and have done for some time. You do not want to hold the luggage queue up with printing out boarding passes. Same with visa checks.
  - dzhiurgis 1y ago
    While I generally support Ryanair, there's something to be said about their boarding passes. If you book their flights via agent (I had because of somewhat complex flight and I didn't want to enter details 4 times) then you can't really access their checkin page since agent uses their email address and Ryanair doesn't let you just use PNR + Name anymore (increasingly popular with other airlines too). My agency was still sleeping at the time of flight and badaboom badabing I had to pay €200+ for checking in 6 people.
    - martinald 1y ago
      Yeah but this very much intentional, because Ryanair (especially) do not want to be sold via agents. They have went to pretty extreme lengths to stop it. They do not want to be disintermediated (rightly or wrongly). FWIW they do now have a page where you can verify with just email + PNR https://onlineform.ryanair.com/gb/en/customer-verification https://onlineform.ryanair.com/gb/en/customer-verification
tim333 1y ago
I tried to check into a Ryanair flight online about 1hr55m before take off and was refused because it was less than 2hrs before takeoff but they were quite happy to print the thing for 100 euro at the airport. I feel they were more concerned with grabbing the money than avoiding using their printer.
- martinald 1y ago
  Does have an impact though checking in at the last minute (whether it is 1h55 though I couldn't say, but you do need a cut off). If you can get everyone checked in as early as possible then you can do a lot of the preflight calculations earlier and be more likely to leave on time. I'm feeling like some Ryanair apologist, which I'm not, I just think that it's a bit reductive to go "boarding pass costs x when it is a piece of paper!". If you listen to LCCs talk about their operations you start realising these fees are not solely about money but efficiency via incentives. NB one thing I'd slate Ryanair for is only opening check in 24 hours before unless you have priority, that is extremely annoying and definitely designed to push you to priority.
attendant3446 1y ago
The last time I flew with Ryanair, I was told that I couldn't board using the PDF ticket and that I had to download their app. I was already late, so I had no choice but to comply. Ryanair is a truly disgusting company by any measure.

paxys 1y ago

Nope, all bullshit. - The fee is absolutely not a rounding error to Ryanair. We are talking about tickets that cost €9-15. They rely on these extra charges to make their money back. - They already have counters at the airport. In fact you have to go to them to drop off check in bags and/or weigh your carry ons. - Mobile boarding passes already exist, and most other airlines use them. If it was really about cost savings Ryanair & co. would embrace them fully.

martinald 1y ago
Ryanair already has mobile boarding passes and have done for I want to say at least 10 years? You honestly think Ryanair makes serious money from reprinting boarding passes? I doubt I have ever seen anyone at the Ryanair ticket desk at STN for example. That compares to the 50k+ passengers a day that go through STN on Ryanair. Baggage charges of course, as is with food, but boarding passes is not a money maker for them. Those counters don't typically print tickets, it's a different "ticketing" counter.
- m000 1y ago
  > Those counters don't typically print tickets, it's a different "ticketing" counter. WTF are you talking about? (a) Ticketing counters sell tickets. (b) To print a boarding pass you just need a printer, which is already present on ALL baggage drop off counters. It is the same printer that prints the baggage labels.
  - martinald 1y ago
    Most LCCs make you go to a ticketing counter to print boarding passes and have done for some time. You do not want to hold the luggage queue up with printing out boarding passes. Same with visa checks.
- dzhiurgis 1y ago
  While I generally support Ryanair, there's something to be said about their boarding passes. If you book their flights via agent (I had because of somewhat complex flight and I didn't want to enter details 4 times) then you can't really access their checkin page since agent uses their email address and Ryanair doesn't let you just use PNR + Name anymore (increasingly popular with other airlines too). My agency was still sleeping at the time of flight and badaboom badabing I had to pay €200+ for checking in 6 people.
  - martinald 1y ago
    Yeah but this very much intentional, because Ryanair (especially) do not want to be sold via agents. They have went to pretty extreme lengths to stop it. They do not want to be disintermediated (rightly or wrongly). FWIW they do now have a page where you can verify with just email + PNR https://onlineform.ryanair.com/gb/en/customer-verification https://onlineform.ryanair.com/gb/en/customer-verification

tim333 1y ago

I tried to check into a Ryanair flight online about 1hr55m before take off and was refused because it was less than 2hrs before takeoff but they were quite happy to print the thing for 100 euro at the airport. I feel they were more concerned with grabbing the money than avoiding using their printer.

martinald 1y ago
Does have an impact though checking in at the last minute (whether it is 1h55 though I couldn't say, but you do need a cut off). If you can get everyone checked in as early as possible then you can do a lot of the preflight calculations earlier and be more likely to leave on time. I'm feeling like some Ryanair apologist, which I'm not, I just think that it's a bit reductive to go "boarding pass costs x when it is a piece of paper!". If you listen to LCCs talk about their operations you start realising these fees are not solely about money but efficiency via incentives. NB one thing I'd slate Ryanair for is only opening check in 24 hours before unless you have priority, that is extremely annoying and definitely designed to push you to priority.

attendant3446 1y ago

The last time I flew with Ryanair, I was told that I couldn't board using the PDF ticket and that I had to download their app. I was already late, so I had no choice but to comply. Ryanair is a truly disgusting company by any measure.