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> but will instead need to use the digital boarding pass generated in their “myRyanair” app during check-in to board their Ryanair flight. And of course it's o
by HiPhish 11mo ago
> but will instead need to use the digital boarding pass generated in their “myRyanair” app during check-in to board their Ryanair flight.
And of course it's only possible using a specific proprietary app. You'd think a penny-pinching company would want to use open standard to save money instead of develop a custom app, right? I'm 100% sure this is done intentionally to scoop up as much personal data from their customers.
- nutjob2 11mo agoIts so they can collect a fee of 50 euros or pounds off you when your phone battery is flat or the app otherwise doesn't work.
- hleszek 11mo agoIt is said on their website that if you lose your phone or it dies, you can get a free boarding pass at the airport. Source: https://www.ryanair.com/gb/en/lp/explore/digital-boarding-pass https://www.ryanair.com/gb/en/lp/explore/digital-boarding-pa...
- ranger_danger 11mo agoThis should be at the top of this thread... it practically makes the whole thing a nothingburger.
- Dylan16807 11mo agoIt moves the app one notch back from mandatory, but that's still enough to be a real problem. That method is going to have very low capacity and if you lie about your phone being dead or elsewhere that might screw you over.
- ranger_danger 11mo ago> if you lie about your phone being dead or elsewhere that might screw you over. I would bet money this will never happen, but ok.
- kmoser 11mo agoLast year I purchased a ticket to a Broadway show in NYC. I refused to use their digital ticketing nonsense, and when I showed up at the box office just before showtime and said my phone wasn't working (for my own definition of "working") they just handed me paper tickets. So I have to believe every one of these companies must have a way of issuing tickets when people's phones "don't work."
- nutjob2 11mo agoSo always carry a dead phone with you when flying Ryanair.
- dfxm12 11mo agoYes. Scooping up user data is just another revenue stream. That is the point.
- mschuster91 11mo agoParticularly for airlines. For years actually flying passengers hasn't been profitable, it's all about side income that makes a profit [1]. [1] https://www.investopedia.com/the-four-biggest-us-airlines-all-lost-money-flying-passengers-last-year-8781856 https://www.investopedia.com/the-four-biggest-us-airlines-al...
- canucker2016 11mo agoThere's a YouTube video that talks about how valuable the major US airlines reward program is. The market cap of each airline is less than the value of each airline's reward program at the time the video was made. I recall Apple was valued in a similar manner back in the late 1990s. Their market cap was barely more than cash on hand. Talk about missed investing opportunities... Not that I'm saying airlines are the next AAPL. edit - here's the video - "How Airlines Quietly Became Banks" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggUduBmvQ_4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggUduBmvQ_4
- swyx 11mo agoi cant believe i'm about to defend Ryanair but just fwiw it seems quite normal to do a custom app specifically for tickets, for anticheat purposes + the nicety of putting your ticket in Apple Wallet is nice enough that i willingly do it for the airlines i fly. ok that wasnt really defending Ryanair but just being argumentative for the sake of fairness. obviously Ryanair doesn't have Ticketmaster level tech.
- pphysch 11mo agoWhy do you need to download and run an app to get your ticket into your phone's Wallet?
- serial_dev 11mo agoYou can usually get the ticket printed at the desk, print it at home, have a PDF on any device like a Kindle, take a screenshot of the QR code, add to your wallet on your phone even without proprietary apps, etc… I download the airline’s apps, but I hate relying exclusively on these potentially unreliable apps, or unreliable phones so I always get the ticket in other formats, too: always have an analog version, and some form of digital version on at least two devices. I don’t travel often, but when I do, missing a flight would be expensive or annoying, so it’s a reasonable trade off for me, ymmv. With that said, I also don’t fly Ryanair, so they can do whatever they want.
- swyx 11mo agobtw ryanair charges you like $75 for printing at the desk haha
- gruturo 11mo agoIt absolutely doesn't take an app to issue a boarding pass which will appear in your Apple Wallet. It's literally a zip (with extension .pkpass) containing a master JSON, a few assets like logos and a digital signature. There are tutorials for making your own. Many airlines let you download one once you check in on their website, or email you one, or embed a download link in an SMS, just to name 3 alternatives.
- kjkjadksj 11mo agoI wonder if its like frontier where they hide the standardized mobile boarding pass behind a dark pattern?
- addandsubtract 11mo agoSo far, you can just download the boarding pass to apple/google wallet after checking in. Only dark patterns are in their booking process.
- dalmo3 11mo agoSo instead of one proprietary app now you need two? What's darker than dark?
- addandsubtract 11mo agoYou can also take a screenshot of your ticket. The passes are just for convenience.
- ranger_danger 11mo agoRyanair app blocks screenshots
- BrandoElFollito 11mo agoI just tried and it does not (Android)
- ranger_danger 11mo agoDo you perhaps have biometric unlocking disabled?
- BrandoElFollito 11mo ago
- g-mork 11mo agoThey move 200 million passengers a year. The app is full of upsell. Please explain how your open standard accomplishes their goals
- Retric 11mo agoYou can upsell just fine through a website.
- g-mork 11mo agoI used this app over the weekend, it's actually quite handy. Can't help but notice those priority boarding and seat selection buttons while checking for the gate number. You can also order food from your phone in the cabin using some magical Bluetooth protocol I didn't understand Just to be clear I think their policy is horrifically abusive, but I can totally see why they're doing it
- pmontra 11mo agoTheir goal is not my goal. My goal is to fly to a destination. A paper ticket has always been enough for that. And if they want to upsell a web page can be full of upselling too. But I don't want upsells, only a flight and air companies are commodities. Imagine if I had to install an app for every chain of gas pumps around my country and the nearby ones.
- throw20251110 11mo agoImagine you drive an EV and that's exactly what you have to do.
- dreamcompiler 11mo agoTrue for everybody but Tesla. If you have a Tesla you install the app once to enter your credit card and then you can delete the app if you wish. All you need to recharge is the ability to drive the car (which doesn't require the app).
- madaxe_again 11mo agoActually, it isn’t even possible in all cases. I literally have just got home from a Ryanair flight where they provided me with no option but a paper boarding pass for my daughter. It’s essentially a result of a crazy hack they’ve implemented to support families who have Ryanair prime. You can only name adults as Ryanair prime members, and when you book through a Ryanair prime account, you can only book for the named members. There’s a maximum of two per account, as it’s intended for couples. The kids, aged 2-16, you have to make a “linked booking”. You don’t get boarding passes through the app or email - the only option is to go to a customer service desk and have them print you a paper boarding pass. Also… digital boarding passes are an open standard - IATA BCBP. You can go make your own. https://www.iata.org/contentassets/1dccc9ed041b4f3bbdcf8ee8682e75c4/2021_03_02-bcbp-implementation-guide-version-7-.pdf https://www.iata.org/contentassets/1dccc9ed041b4f3bbdcf8ee86...
- ranger_danger 11mo agoPage | 32 2.6.3. Fraud Prevention Ill-intentioned persons may falsify their BCBP by changing the flight number or class of service. They may also simply print two copies of the BCBP and pass one to a friend, or even create a counterfeit BCBP. Technical solutions exist, e.g. algorithms, called certificates, which can for example secure the bar code if necessary.
- rkagerer 11mo agoWhich I assume also means you need to agree to a shitty, user-hostile ToS?
- ekjhgkejhgk 11mo ago> And of course it's only possible using a specific proprietary app. Right. I like email. I guess fuck me.
- hansvm 11mo agoYeah, it's right up there with the rest of the shady business practices. Delta, for example, charges more physical cash for a cash+miles ticket than for a pure cash ticket (every time I've been inclined to try to use miles over the last few years anyway). I get that they maybe don't meet the legal barrier for fraud, but even a child can see that it's unethical. Toss in the seat-selection UI (strongly suggesting you have to select a seat if you don't know the game and figure out how to exit that menu, but every possible seat has an upcharge above the ticket price), "trip insurance" which is insanely overpriced and mostly only covers the things the airline is already required to reimburse you for, and everything else they do, and it's obvious that when a new anti-feature comes out (mandatory app usage being the latest and greatest) it just exists to scam a few more dollars out of you and lie a bit more about the true ticket price.
- TrainedMonkey 11mo agoI am going to summarize with - they want you to use their app for monetization and ux purposes.
- cyanydeez 11mo agoOpen source should work hard on a "universal" VM to load these types of apps into.
- john-h-k 11mo agoThere’s an easy solution. Don’t fly Ryanair! I’m perfectly happy to take this sacrifice in exchange for cheaper tickets