December 5th - Something odd has been happening with Ryanair's boarding passes
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 5 December 2023
⏱️ 6 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The great Ryanair boarding pass mystery. Has Ryanair come up with a new moneymaking scheme just in time for Christmas? That is the question that has been exercising a good few of you in the last couple of days. The short answer, according to an airline spokesperson, is no: “There is no new procedure in force.” But something odd has been happening. Here's what we know, and what I am guessing.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Corder and it's already |
| 0:07.2 | Tuesday the 5th of December and for the last 48 hours I've been trying to sort out a bit of a mystery. |
| 0:14.7 | Let me explain Ryanair absolutely the biggest, most successful, safest, budget airline in Europe, |
| 0:26.9 | has long had a policy of asking you to check in in an advance, |
| 0:31.0 | and if you don't, you'll be paying a fortune at the airport, |
| 0:34.2 | and furthermore allowing you to check in using a mobile boarding pass there's a very few |
| 0:41.0 | exceptions um whole country of morocco and some other places where you do actually have to print out |
| 0:47.1 | a boarding pass and line up and get it stamped and so on but for the vast majority of people |
| 0:52.9 | me included i've got used to just it's the easiest |
| 0:56.6 | thing imaginable you can book a flight in two minutes check in within 24 hours of departure |
| 1:02.2 | get your mobile boarding pass and off you go fantastic except that on Sunday I started being contacted by people who were saying, |
| 1:16.1 | hang on, I've just been trying my usual thing of not selecting a seat, |
| 1:20.4 | getting a mobile boarding pass and getting onto the plane, |
| 1:24.0 | and I have got something saying that I can't do this. I've either got to pay for a suit |
| 1:30.8 | selection in advance or I have to queue up at a desk. I'm looking at one here. I've got no |
| 1:38.9 | reason to believe that Richard, who sent this to me, is doing anything other than trying to provide some genuine |
| 1:45.5 | help and enlightenment into this. It was stanched to Palmer, actually on Friday this was. Check-in |
| 1:51.4 | done, it says at the top, get your boarding pass now and avoid queuing at the airport by adding a seat. |
| 1:58.1 | And I thought, well, that's odd, because below it says this is not a mobile |
| 2:02.7 | boarding pass. You must collect your boarding pass at the airport check-in desk. So, |
| 2:08.3 | that's what I'm looking at. I need to stress that Ryanair says there is no change in policy |
| 2:15.5 | and that everybody can get a boarding pass without paying any extra. |
... |
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