Ryanair to charge €40 for boarding cards
Ryanair passengers check-in but the no frills airline is abolishing the use of traditional check-in desks at airports as it moves the service entirely online
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Thursday May 14 2009
RYANAIR customers who arrive at the airport without their own pre-printed boarding card will face a €40 charge.
However, passengers who book in online will also soon be hit with a separate €5 charge as the no-frills airline moves a step closer to internet check-in only.
The "boarding card re-issue fee" will apply to all bookings made from next Wednesday onwards.
It will apply to passengers who arrive at the airport without a pre-printed boarding card -- and to bookings made previously where the passenger has opted for online check-in.
Consumer watchdogs last night condemned the new charge on top of the compulsory €5 online check in fee.
"Ryanair is doing what suits them, but whatever they say they have a number of passengers who do not have access to computers or printers and they will have difficulties as a result of this," Consumers Association of Ireland Chief Executive Dermott Jewell said.
"This is an extraordinarily punitive charge. I know it's meant to act as a deterrent but really it shows that Ryanair is not so much a business as a dictatorship. It would not be acceptable if we had real competition."
Ryanair spokesman Stephen McNamara said the company hoped never to have to collect the latest fee imposed on its customers. But he claimed the airline had to do something to discourage people from arriving without their boarding cards.
The charge will apply to each person on a joint booking as each would have to have their own boarding card, so three people travelling together would have to pay €120.
However, Ryanair are also making it easier for people who might experience difficulties in printing out their boarding cards by allowing them print or reprint them up to 40 minutes before their flight -- as long as they checked in online between 15 days and four hours beforehand.
Carrot
"We have taken into account the need for a larger window of time for those situations where a printer doesn't work or something, so we have given people more time to find somewhere else to print them," Mr McNamara said.
"It's a carrot and stick approach, but arriving without your boarding card has to be treated seriously in the same way as turning up without your passport is," he said.
The new charge is part of Ryanair's move to phase out airport check-ins altogether by October.
- Aideen Sheehan Consumer Correspondent