Within the coming weeks, Ryanair shall be utterly eliminating paper boarding passes and airport check-in. Is that this a radical change, or is Ryanair simply forward of its time?
Ryanair boarding passes are going 100% digital
In October 2024, Ryanair Group CEO Michael O’Leary revealed that the airline can be considerably altering its check-in procedures. With this, the airline plans to utterly scrap the idea of paper boarding passes, and within the course of, get rid of airport check-in.
Properly, this wasn’t simply discuss, because it’s actually occurring — as of Wednesday, November 12, 2025, Ryanair will transition to 100% digital boarding passes. Not solely received’t or not it’s attainable to get a boarding move on the airport, however you really received’t even have the ability to print a boarding move at house.
As an alternative, the one method to get a boarding move shall be to generate a digital one via the “myRyanair” app. In fact as earlier than, it’ll be attainable to check-in baggage on the airport, however that’s a distinct operate than getting checked in.
Ryanair claims that round 80% of the service’s 206+ million annual clients already use digital boarding passes, and that this transfer merely follows different key industries that require tickets, like festivals, music, and sports activities occasions, which have switched to digital-only ticketing.
Beneath Ryanair’s present coverage, the airline requires passengers to check-in on-line, except they’ve a Flexi Plus ticket, by which case they’ll check-in on the airport. Those that don’t have on-line boarding passes are even on the hook for fairly some charges.
For one, the airline has a £/€55 airport check-in payment, which applies per particular person per sector, for individuals who don’t have a Flexi Plus ticket. That’s proper, you may need booked a £10 ticket, however then that you must pay £55 to truly check-in to your flight. On prime of that, the airline has a £/€20 payment to reissue boarding passes.
Is that this Ryanair coverage change unreasonable?
To my information, we’ve by no means seen an airline go fairly this far relating to proscribing check-in, although we’re speaking about Ryanair, an airline that’s virtually happy with how punitive it may be with clients. I imply, this is identical airline that (jokingly… nicely, form of) insults its clients on social media all day.
What I discover attention-grabbing right here is that this modification is definitely one step additional than I used to be anticipating. Initially, I assumed Ryanair would simply get rid of the power to check-in on the airport, however it’s really greater than that. You may’t even print a boarding move at house, however as an alternative, must obtain and use the app.
In different phrases, it feels like you possibly can not fly Ryanair in the event you don’t have a smartphone. Now, admittedly a overwhelming majority of individuals do have smartphones, however it appears fairly excessive to primarily say that these with out a smartphone can’t fly in your airline.
I think that within the coming years, we’re going to more and more see airways push individuals to check-in on-line, as a way to scale back staffing at airports. For instance, in 2023, Alaska Airways introduced it might get rid of airport check-in kiosks. On the time, the airline claimed that about 70% of passengers had been checking in on-line, and the airline wished to extend that quantity to 90%.
That’s at an airline the place there’s no penalty to check-in on the airport, so I’ve to think about that quantity is even manner larger at Ryanair, the place checking in on the airport will price you dearly.
Nonetheless, there’s a distinction between asking individuals to check-in on-line (and doubtlessly printing their very own boarding move), and requiring them to have a digital boarding move (the place they want a smartphone and the app). I think about that is fairly deliberate, and is the most recent push for Ryanair to get individuals to obtain the app, because it’s a lot simpler to promote individuals flights and providers if they’ve the app, have push notifications enabled, and so on.
I can’t assist however be curious in regards to the operational impacts this may have, both from individuals not aware of the coverage, and even from individuals who run out of battery on their cellphone whereas on the airport.
Backside line
As of November 12, 2025, Ryanair shall be transitioning to 100% digital boarding passes. Not solely received’t or not it’s attainable to print a boarding move on the airport, however it received’t even be attainable to print one at house. As an alternative, the one method to get a boarding move shall be via Ryanair’s app.
Whereas I do suppose we’ll more and more see airways transition to strongly encouraging individuals to check-in on-line, not even letting individuals print their very own boarding passes at house definitely appears excessive, and implies that anybody with out a smartphone can’t fly with the airline.
What do you make of Ryanair transitioning to 100% digital boarding passes?
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