> 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.
Yeah, 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.
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.
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.
Their 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.
I don't think it helps if you're arguing their position. We don't want to allow them to upsell. They're crossing the line into social ostracization grounds.
At this point, their destruction of social trust is so severe that simply boycotting is not enough, just like you don't just boycott a company that's doing environmental destruction. They simply need to be stopped, regardless of their goals.
i 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.
It 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.
Why does a boarding pass need a rootkit? ("anticheat" is usually code for root kits, and at least it has some positive trade off for users in the video game case)
They can just check the scanned pass against their own database to verify authenticity. They could also cryptographically sign it.
You 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.
Out of curiosity, what happens when someone does not own a smartphone (or the battery is dead)? They just can't fly?
And, if their server flaky, does that mean all boarding will stop? If the agents can check people in manually, it seems like the small fraction of people using a paper boarding pass can't be adding much extra cost. If they are saving cost by removing that flow, presumably they are giving up redundancy. Given the quality of airline software, I predict they will see a mass outage within a year.
The whole business model of discount airlines is to cater to the fat part of the bell curve and not the long tails. If you require special accommodation at any point in the process don't fly via a super budget value airline. Even if they do support your use case, they're not in the business of making it easy and they'll hit you with a "fuck you" fee to make it worth their while.
I once flew from London on Ryanair when the airport's passenger Wi-Fi was completely down, and 4G was completely overloaded as a result as well.
Things were indeed pretty chaotic. I can't remember if they did print paper boarding passes in the end.
> it seems like the small fraction of people using a paper boarding pass can't be adding much extra cost
You're looking at this from the wrong angle: This is Ryanair. Actual cost does not matter, only the opportunity to extract more revenue. Presumably app users are that much more valuable to Ryanair (as they can be upsold various things there, and potentially because it also acts as a filter for a generally less profitable customer segment).
It's also a marketing channel for future flights. The app almost certainly asks for notification permissions, and most people will say yes -- they're useful for knowing if your flight is delayed or there's a gate change.
Now they have a channel where they can let you know about deals, etc. I'm sure they've modeled exactly how much this is worth, and I'd be willing to bet it's a lot.
The upsell opportunity isn't worth anywhere near $50 though. I suspect it acts as a price discrimination filter. You make people jump through hoops (ie. installing an app) to save some money, with the expectation that people who are willing to jump through hoops are more price sensitive, and would also be willing to switch to another airline.
Stupid question here, because I haven't flown with Ryanair in like almost 10 years, but I've recently flown with WizzAir and after checking-in online (the night before) it generated a .pdf boarding pass which I saved on my phone. I was then able to get onto the plane by presenting the QR code from said .pdf, i.e. while I was at the gate, no need for internet access. Does Ryanair do things differently?
These byzantine arguments and justifications and profit motivation and incentive tea readings are so ridiculous at a certain point, I'm surprised so many people wont even consider socializing airlines.
What a cold comfort to a grandma struggling to use an upsell-focused dark patterns app when the wifi is poor at some airport to get home to see her grandkids stuck at some airport to say, "Well, this maximized shareholder revenue."
I feel like I'm in the last stages of 'anything goes' capitalism. The ridiculousness here has hit such levels, especially in the USA, that there must be pushback sooner than later. I dunno how the Irish feel about this considering this is their airline (HQ at least), or their experiences, but on this side of the pond, this has all has reached new levels of absurdity that would make even Kafka blush.
Contrary to what many replies are telling you, the link clearly states that if you don't own a smartphone, you can check in online and then obtain a boarding pass for free at the airport.
(Not sure how easy that will be or if they actually verify that you don't own a smartphone, etc.)
>Contrary to what many replies are telling you, the link clearly states that if you don't own a smartphone, you can check in online and then obtain a boarding pass for free at the airport.
The press release says absolutely nothing of the sort.
Technically, the vast majority of users don't own their device. They are leasing it through their carrier. Then because it is HN, once the device is paid off, the user still doesn't own it as they cannot use it as they see fit and still must use it as the manufacturer sees fit. So this "own" word is potential for interpretation
Frontier already expects digital boarding passes. I do not own a phone, so they charged me a $25 fee to print one at customer service. Except they also do not accept cash, so I had to go buy a gift card with cash from a vending machine for another $5 fee.
For $30 I could buy an entire discount printer and print one myself.
> Out of curiosity, what happens when someone does not own a smartphone (or the battery is dead)?
Or you drop your phone. Or it gets stolen. Or for whatever reason the software fails. Electronic devices are so flimsy, even if you want to use an app it's worth having paper as a backup option. It's the same reason why I always carry cash and a card on me (and I pay in cash as much as possible anyway).
> If you have already checked-in online and your smartphone or tablet dies,
you will receive a free of charge boarding pass at the airport.
> If passengers don’t have a smartphone or tablet, as long as they have already
checked-in online before arriving at the airport, they will receive a free of charge boarding pass at the airport.
This is simply the mindset of discount airlines. If your battery is dead when you arrive at check-in that's too bad for you. It's in the terms and conditions.
If the server is flaky then boarding will be delayed for everyone and it'll be a whole crapshow but if their overall cost is lower than it would have been with printed boarding passes, fine.
Usually they'll happily help you out with a "late boarding pass printing fee" on the order of a hundred €/$, though.
If this really is a total refusal to do even that, I'd be slightly surprised, but I'm sure their business developers have done the analysis and it makes some sense to them.
You would also be surprised at how 'tech savvy' non-tech people are in the UK. It is quite common for non-tech people to screenshot train ticket QR codes just in case they have no signal at the station yet none of the common train booking apps suggest this.
Rest assured, Ryanair knows their passengers very well. They know that every single one of their passengers knows how to babysit a smartphone so the battery doesn't die on their flight. Let's be honest, sudden unexpected incontinence is more likely than a Ryanair passenger fluffing up their pocket device for doom-scrolling.
For more fun, Frontier's app doesn't even run on my phone. Step 1 to fly with them is to go buy a phone from the last 2-3 years (can probably get away with something a little older if iOS).
Passport/EU-ID to check you already have a ticket should be the standard. Everyone saves time and money this way BUT now they can earn more money at the gate.
Re: the "their server is flaky" (I believe you mean at the gate) case, I think any airline might be then struggling with boarding passengers, whether they have paper boarding cards or not.
>For what it is worth, at least on iPhone you can still use the bus/train pass feature in Wallet even when the battery is dead.
AFAIK that only works for NFC passes? For passes that are just qr/bar codes I can't imagine how that'd work if the battery is actually dead. The "use bus passes when battery is dead" feature only works because there's dedicated low power circuitry to power the NFC hardware, which obviously doesn't exist for the display.
We talk about ryanair, the scummiest of the bottom scum of airlines, they wanted to charge everybody 2 euros to use toilet (or did it pass? I can't imagine in EU, I would piss on their cabinets since I don't carry coins around).
I always print boarding passes, traveled enough to see tons of people struggling with their phones, with their pdf viewers or airline apps, to block everybody else to know what good manners and empathy to others (or simply less stressful travel) are. I wish I could save that atto fraction of a planet by not printing but it can't be like that with current ways of things.
Luckily ryanair is mostly absent from our airport (Geneva), its Easyjet all the way, way more than even Swiss airlines which chickened out on numerous levels on every swiss airport apart from Zurich. They are low cost with their share of issues but man, compared to ryanair they are absolute top versus rotten vomit, to keep things polite but precise.
> Out of curiosity, what happens when someone does not own a smartphone (or the battery is dead)? They just can't fly?
Yup, based on this announcement, and previous policy calls they've made, that person won't be able to fly. End of. They lose their seat, kthxbye!
Ryanair has made its way in the budget market (arguably inventing the budget market to some extent), by employing money-making practices of dubious need from charging people to use toilets on-board, to flying with so little fuel that they regularly call fuel emergencies on approach.
Their bet - that the market seems to support - is that people will put up with almost anything if it means a cheaper ticket.
They're even expecting to get clearance from authorities to get rid of proper seating and move to "standing seats" so they can get more people onboard, their theory being you'll stand for 3 hours on a plane if it means your ticket is x% cheaper.
I refuse to fly with them on principle - they're a terrible airline owned by a terrible person, run in a terrible way. It's only a matter of time before people realise just how dangerous they are as an operation. I hope it's just a data security issue they run into and people run away from the app scared, and not the increasingly inevitable hull loss that many have been predicting for years.
This is just another reason not to fly with them, for me.
This is a PR stunt that is regularly used (like the idea of standing-room-only tickets) to generate a new round of press for the company and highlight how cost-efficient and ruthless they are, which aligns with their branding and keeps the story alive.
I understand the sentiment but as sibling comment points out, you're very light in the way of stating facts to back up these claims.
>to flying with so little fuel that they regularly call fuel emergencies on approach.
If you're talking about the recent incident, I thought that was because they tried landing several times at different airports? Is there any evidence that they routinely fly with less fuel buffer than other airlines?
I mean it isn’t surprising people put up such abuse when I find that usually these discount airlines are half the ticket price of a major carrier for the same sort of flight. I’ve gotten remarkably good at efficiently packing my allotted small personal item bag.
I have no idea about Europeans, but as an American who's flown a lot recently, the push to smartphone based tickets has been a nightmare. Not because of the tickets, but people aren't seemingly smart or considerate enough to use them correctly.
Paper tickets were so fast. Fold, press, beep, done.
App based tickets? Constant announcements (I'm talking 10 or more during boarding) to turn your brightness up. Despite that, I saw
1 - 25ish percent of people had dark screens, so the attendant had to take the phone, up the brightness, scan it, then hand it back.
2 - A number of screen with cracks or something (didn't get a good look) that required moving the QR code around to get it to scan.
3 - An alarming number of people who didn't bother to even unlock their phone, who then proceed to fumble with thumbing or face scanning, close whatever they were doing, then go into the app and find their ticket.
I'd say the boarding process took at minimum two to three times as long as they did with purely paper tickets.
The paper scanning is hardly the limitation with onboarding.
I feel like you never fly because if you did, you’d know the biggest limitation in boarding speed is the inefficient method they use to board people… not the scanning part. If everyone scans efficiently (something you see often at places like SFO), you just are waiting on the jet bridge… It only takes one person who needs to take off their coat before they sit down or has trouble putting their oversized carry on in storage, etc. to completely shutdown onboarding.
It's ok to point out a flaw in my argument without calling me a liar.
I probably should have said 3x the scanning time, perhaps not total boarding time, I agree with that much.
That said, if the person blocking your seating arrived on the plane 20 minutes later because scanning took an extra 20 minutes, that still means you were delayed 20 minutes + person blocking you.
But I'd expect someone who flies from an airport smarter than everyone else in the US to have already factored that in.
Temporarily controlling screen brightness is something that, at least on android, the app can do itself...
The cracked screen thing - funny.
I wonder how long these twats will hold out.
I hope by the next time I fly Ryanair, someone has figured out how to emulate the look of the app and extract the relevant data so I don't have to run their garbage malware on my phone in order to have the pleasure to fly a "cheap" airline which bills you for everything after using every dark pattern imaginable when you purchase their tickets.
I fly a lot and most people are using their phones now without issue. But when someone does have an issue I remind myself that many people rarely fly, and haven't been through the process hundreds of times. Phone, paper, whatever - people screw it up if they haven't done it before. Boarding first, pre-check/global entry are all beneficial in part because you're dealing with other frequent flyers.
While annoying, the boarding pass scanning process usually isn't the bottleneck.
After I scanned my boarding pass, I then waited in line in the jet bridge, because people in the plane were busy putting their luggage in the overhead compartments, searching for their seats, moving to let people sit in the window seats, and other assorted activities.
> If you have already checked-in online and your smartphone or tablet dies / is lost, you will receive a free of charge boarding pass at the airport.
> If passengers don’t have a smartphone or tablet, as long as they have already
checked-in online before arriving at the airport, they will receive a free of charge boarding pass at the airport.
Wow, this might just be an improvement on the status quo (app optional, but high boarding pass printing fee if it's not used).
I don't think this policy will hold up in the face of Ryanair ticket resellers though, since it seems to be pretty clearly designed to make their life harder once again, but free replacement printing would offer them a way out.
Traveling seems to be essential, but having the App Store, iPhone, or Android definitely are not.
What happens if your phone is stolen, broken, discharged? Finally, I fly several times a month with different companies, does that mean I should have a circus of apps on my phone?
More broadly, we need regulation where companies cannot make "ownership of the newest smartphone" a requirement to do business with them. I'm lucky to be in the USA where we still haven't smartphone-ized everything yet, but every year I see it creeping in. Every year, a new bank requires a smartphone to create a passkey or whatever. Every year, a restaurant I like moves over to QR code menus. Every year, a doctor decides to move over to smartphone-based payments only. And of course, all of the crappy app developers insist that 1. I use a very recent phone and 2. I run the latest OS, or I'm shut out.
I have no problem with enabling smartphone-based payments and passes for people who like them, but companies should not be allowed to block out (or charge extra to) others who prefer not to tether themselves to a phone.
Here in some European countries, like France, having a smartphone out in a restaurant is a sign of bad etiquette. It's not crucial, but from some people's perspective it might seem out of place. However, some restaurants tried QR code menus due to COVID-19, but most of them have since stopped using them.
I fully agree that having the latest version of a phone/OS should not be treated as a requirement for access to services, especially essential ones.
>. And of course, all of the crappy app developers insist that 1. I use a very recent phone and 2. I run the latest OS, or I'm shut out.
Signal did this when my wife's Macbook could no longer be updated to the latest Apple OS version. Signal just stopped working for her completely on her laptop. She couldn't install the latest version of Signal due to her not being on the latest OS, and Signal won't allow the old version to work once it's outdated. We had to buy her a whole new laptop (not Apple this time) to get her back on Signal (something she relies on).
Yes, I know about the hacky workarounds to get the latest OS working on a Macbook, but fuck that noise.
>More broadly, we need regulation where companies cannot make "ownership of the newest smartphone" a requirement to do business with them.
I'm not keen on mobile apps in general, but I don't see a need for regulation here. Companies want customers. It's not in their interest to needlessly harass people with pointless technology requirements that drive people to competitors. No company has ever required "the newest smartphone" for everyday tasks.
I don't support a general right to refuse adoption of any and all new technologies. What I do support is a mandate to use open technologies wherever possible for infrastructure that no one can reasonably avoid. What we can't allow is that people who lose some oligopolist account can no longer live a normal life.
> I have no problem with enabling smartphone-based payments and passes for people who like them, but companies should not be allowed to block out (or charge extra to) others who prefer not to tether themselves to a phone.
I agree with this. (The same would apply to restaurant menus.)
(In the case of restaurant menus, they could post a single copy near the entrance or somewhere that it can be seen by everyone in case they do not want to make multiple copies (and do not want to waste paper). E-paper displays might be used in case they sometimes change.)
Do the checkin online and add the boarding pass to your ios/android wallet, as simple as that. Just did the last weekend with ryanair. Btw the faq specify that as long as you do the checkin online, if you lose your device or it dies a boarding pass will be printed for you for free
> What happens if your phone is stolen, broken, discharged?
Another comment says that if any of those apply (or if you do not have a (compatible) smart phone) then you can still receive a boarding pass at the airport, although it seems that you will still need check-in online.
If a government offers official apps for those platforms and banks allow you to use some services for free via app but charge a fee if you show up in person I think airlines can get away with it too
Or use a different phone than apple's or google's, one that protect your privacy against airline companies stealing and resselling your data. The free market will... hem...
Traveling by plane, and specifically by budget airline, isn't essential. I'm not in favor of Ryanair's move here but it's also a free market, they can add restrictions and the market will react to it.
I'm fine with restrictions if they are reasonable/justified. I don't have an app store and I'm not planning to use one, and it's unclear to me why I'm unable to download and print a ticket when they can do the same for €50.
From a personal computer there are zero requirements, I don't need to have a special OS, or application, or anything. On the mobile application side, I must have one of two authorized app stores, an account there, and perhaps a specific OS version. This is something that I find unfair in this business practice.
Reminder what kind of company ryanair is. At one point some 15 (?) years ago ryanair used to charge you 60 euros if you showed up at the boarding gate having only the boarding pass on your phone instead of printed on a piece of paper. There was absolutely no reason for this (their reader reads as well from phone as from paper) other than betting that some fraction of the people would forget to print their boarding pass in paper. And they were right, I saw it in front of me many times and one time almost happened to me. If memory serves me I believe that at the time this was regulated out by the EU.
Here's another one. I read some headline years ago that the ryanair boss was happy to order as many 737 MAX as he could, despite the planes reputation for problems, because if you make the flights cheap enough, people will still fly on it.
I have no doubt he's right, but says something about him and the company.
They have a history of buying a lot of planes whenever there's a chance to get them cheaper. Typically, they sell planes for more than they cost to buy new.
For the 737 max at least, they built a simulator training facility in Dublin so they could train their pilots faster for when the max returned to flight.
I wouldn't take anything their CEO says at face value though. He's often saying provocative things just to get news coverage (cheaper and more effective than traditional advertising), and admits to that himself.
Ok but what you're describing is the classic "be cheaper than competition, gain market share, then raise prices" and is basically how business works. Almost every company does this if they are run well enough to manage to pull it off.
Setting up rules to trick customers to make mistakes and then demand 60 euros for printing a sheet of paper is morally dishonest and I would say most don't do this.
Ryanair basically invented most of the dark patterns that are now prevalent in all travel websites. Back then, the experience was so awful that it was comical (and even inspired a song[0]). Therefore I'm not surprised that they are the first to mandate you install their app on your phone. All other companies that have dreamed of this will be quick to follow suit.
Notice the euphemism of calling this "going digital". Everybody is already digital, using a pdf reader on their phone at the terminal, despite some companies discouraging this practice. That's not digital enough, is it?
"Ryanair, Europe’s No.1 airline, today (Thurs, 6 Nov) reminded passengers that from Wed (12 Nov) it will move to 100% digital boarding passes. This means that from Wed (12 Nov) passengers will no longer be able to download and print a physical paper boarding pass but will instead need to use the digital boarding pass generated in their “myRyanair” app during check-in to board their Ryanair flight."
Why does it matter whether the boarding pass barcode is scanned from a printed paper vs a phone screen?
Didn't Uber get caught tracking their users (I want to say victims but there are actual victims of Uber sexual harassment/assault) even though they didn't have the app open?
Tracking where your passengers go on vacation would be useful data for them. Sheesh you could even track flights: "User was online at London Heathrow until 11:45, and was then offline, and came back online again in Madrid at 14:30, the corresponding flight at those times was EasyJet 78".
It'll be interesting to see where this is enforced. Most people won't actually see a member of Ryanair staff until the gate (at which point very often you're asked to scan your own barcode with a staff member present).
I reckon you'll be able to print out a screenshot of the app and use it to check your bags in and get through security. They won't hold a flight up with checked bags at the gate - will cost them too much money.
It's not rare that some staff are checking that passengers have all needed documents as they head to departures. Looks like they could check app usage there. They could also easily check the app when bags are checked in (that's Ryanair staff doing this).
In smaller airports (the ones Ryanair used to operate from) it's also sometimes their own barcode scanners before the gates that are dedicated to them.
I believe they will be able to enforce this in many places.
Anti theft perhaps? Last March a guy was able to sneak onto a Delta flight by taking a picture of someone else's QR code. Some ticketing apps have temporal QR codes that are resistant to this exploit.
It has to be compatible with the physical scanners at the airport, e.g. before security. So Ryanair probably is not very flexible in how they design the code.
Readit News
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.
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.
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/1dccc9ed041b4f3bbdcf8ee86...
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.
At this point, their destruction of social trust is so severe that simply boycotting is not enough, just like you don't just boycott a company that's doing environmental destruction. They simply need to be stopped, regardless of their goals.
Source: https://www.ryanair.com/gb/en/lp/explore/digital-boarding-pa...
Right. I like email. I guess fuck me.
[1] https://www.investopedia.com/the-four-biggest-us-airlines-al...
ok that wasnt really defending Ryanair but just being argumentative for the sake of fairness. obviously Ryanair doesn't have Ticketmaster level tech.
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.
They can just check the scanned pass against their own database to verify authenticity. They could also cryptographically sign it.
Until technology gives us better controls, we must assume that every app, particularly those from large profit-driven corporations, is hostile.
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.
And, if their server flaky, does that mean all boarding will stop? If the agents can check people in manually, it seems like the small fraction of people using a paper boarding pass can't be adding much extra cost. If they are saving cost by removing that flow, presumably they are giving up redundancy. Given the quality of airline software, I predict they will see a mass outage within a year.
That sounds pretty illegal if they aren't making accommodations for disabilities.
Things were indeed pretty chaotic. I can't remember if they did print paper boarding passes in the end.
> it seems like the small fraction of people using a paper boarding pass can't be adding much extra cost
You're looking at this from the wrong angle: This is Ryanair. Actual cost does not matter, only the opportunity to extract more revenue. Presumably app users are that much more valuable to Ryanair (as they can be upsold various things there, and potentially because it also acts as a filter for a generally less profitable customer segment).
Now they have a channel where they can let you know about deals, etc. I'm sure they've modeled exactly how much this is worth, and I'd be willing to bet it's a lot.
What a cold comfort to a grandma struggling to use an upsell-focused dark patterns app when the wifi is poor at some airport to get home to see her grandkids stuck at some airport to say, "Well, this maximized shareholder revenue."
I feel like I'm in the last stages of 'anything goes' capitalism. The ridiculousness here has hit such levels, especially in the USA, that there must be pushback sooner than later. I dunno how the Irish feel about this considering this is their airline (HQ at least), or their experiences, but on this side of the pond, this has all has reached new levels of absurdity that would make even Kafka blush.
(Not sure how easy that will be or if they actually verify that you don't own a smartphone, etc.)
The press release says absolutely nothing of the sort.
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For $30 I could buy an entire discount printer and print one myself.
Or you drop your phone. Or it gets stolen. Or for whatever reason the software fails. Electronic devices are so flimsy, even if you want to use an app it's worth having paper as a backup option. It's the same reason why I always carry cash and a card on me (and I pay in cash as much as possible anyway).
> If passengers don’t have a smartphone or tablet, as long as they have already checked-in online before arriving at the airport, they will receive a free of charge boarding pass at the airport.
https://www.ryanair.com/gb/en/lp/explore/digital-boarding-pa...
If the server is flaky then boarding will be delayed for everyone and it'll be a whole crapshow but if their overall cost is lower than it would have been with printed boarding passes, fine.
If this really is a total refusal to do even that, I'd be slightly surprised, but I'm sure their business developers have done the analysis and it makes some sense to them.
Source: https://www.ryanair.com/gb/en/lp/explore/digital-boarding-pa...
Rest assured, Ryanair knows their passengers very well. They know that every single one of their passengers knows how to babysit a smartphone so the battery doesn't die on their flight. Let's be honest, sudden unexpected incontinence is more likely than a Ryanair passenger fluffing up their pocket device for doom-scrolling.
https://www.ryanair.com/gb/en/lp/explore/digital-boarding-pa...
Re: the "their server is flaky" (I believe you mean at the gate) case, I think any airline might be then struggling with boarding passengers, whether they have paper boarding cards or not.
But it has always been the Ryanair brand to ask the consumer "how much bullshit are you willing to put up with to save a buck?"
AFAIK that only works for NFC passes? For passes that are just qr/bar codes I can't imagine how that'd work if the battery is actually dead. The "use bus passes when battery is dead" feature only works because there's dedicated low power circuitry to power the NFC hardware, which obviously doesn't exist for the display.
Doesn't seem like it'll help in this case, seems Ryanair is forcing the usage to be via their app instead of anything else.
I always print boarding passes, traveled enough to see tons of people struggling with their phones, with their pdf viewers or airline apps, to block everybody else to know what good manners and empathy to others (or simply less stressful travel) are. I wish I could save that atto fraction of a planet by not printing but it can't be like that with current ways of things.
Luckily ryanair is mostly absent from our airport (Geneva), its Easyjet all the way, way more than even Swiss airlines which chickened out on numerous levels on every swiss airport apart from Zurich. They are low cost with their share of issues but man, compared to ryanair they are absolute top versus rotten vomit, to keep things polite but precise.
Yup, based on this announcement, and previous policy calls they've made, that person won't be able to fly. End of. They lose their seat, kthxbye!
Ryanair has made its way in the budget market (arguably inventing the budget market to some extent), by employing money-making practices of dubious need from charging people to use toilets on-board, to flying with so little fuel that they regularly call fuel emergencies on approach.
Their bet - that the market seems to support - is that people will put up with almost anything if it means a cheaper ticket.
They're even expecting to get clearance from authorities to get rid of proper seating and move to "standing seats" so they can get more people onboard, their theory being you'll stand for 3 hours on a plane if it means your ticket is x% cheaper.
I refuse to fly with them on principle - they're a terrible airline owned by a terrible person, run in a terrible way. It's only a matter of time before people realise just how dangerous they are as an operation. I hope it's just a data security issue they run into and people run away from the app scared, and not the increasingly inevitable hull loss that many have been predicting for years.
This is just another reason not to fly with them, for me.
AFAIK this has never happened.
This is a PR stunt that is regularly used (like the idea of standing-room-only tickets) to generate a new round of press for the company and highlight how cost-efficient and ruthless they are, which aligns with their branding and keeps the story alive.
I understand the sentiment but as sibling comment points out, you're very light in the way of stating facts to back up these claims.
If you're talking about the recent incident, I thought that was because they tried landing several times at different airports? Is there any evidence that they routinely fly with less fuel buffer than other airlines?
Paper tickets were so fast. Fold, press, beep, done.
App based tickets? Constant announcements (I'm talking 10 or more during boarding) to turn your brightness up. Despite that, I saw
1 - 25ish percent of people had dark screens, so the attendant had to take the phone, up the brightness, scan it, then hand it back.
2 - A number of screen with cracks or something (didn't get a good look) that required moving the QR code around to get it to scan.
3 - An alarming number of people who didn't bother to even unlock their phone, who then proceed to fumble with thumbing or face scanning, close whatever they were doing, then go into the app and find their ticket.
I'd say the boarding process took at minimum two to three times as long as they did with purely paper tickets.
I feel like you never fly because if you did, you’d know the biggest limitation in boarding speed is the inefficient method they use to board people… not the scanning part. If everyone scans efficiently (something you see often at places like SFO), you just are waiting on the jet bridge… It only takes one person who needs to take off their coat before they sit down or has trouble putting their oversized carry on in storage, etc. to completely shutdown onboarding.
I probably should have said 3x the scanning time, perhaps not total boarding time, I agree with that much.
That said, if the person blocking your seating arrived on the plane 20 minutes later because scanning took an extra 20 minutes, that still means you were delayed 20 minutes + person blocking you.
But I'd expect someone who flies from an airport smarter than everyone else in the US to have already factored that in.
The cracked screen thing - funny.
I wonder how long these twats will hold out.
I hope by the next time I fly Ryanair, someone has figured out how to emulate the look of the app and extract the relevant data so I don't have to run their garbage malware on my phone in order to have the pleasure to fly a "cheap" airline which bills you for everything after using every dark pattern imaginable when you purchase their tickets.
After I scanned my boarding pass, I then waited in line in the jet bridge, because people in the plane were busy putting their luggage in the overhead compartments, searching for their seats, moving to let people sit in the window seats, and other assorted activities.
Myths programmers believe about app-based airline tickets
2) People flying Ryanair always have a charged phone.
2a) Okay, but at least a powerbank.
https://www.ryanair.com/gb/en/lp/explore/digital-boarding-pa...
> But what if, and what if, and what if?
> If you have already checked-in online and your smartphone or tablet dies / is lost, you will receive a free of charge boarding pass at the airport.
> If passengers don’t have a smartphone or tablet, as long as they have already checked-in online before arriving at the airport, they will receive a free of charge boarding pass at the airport.
I don't think this policy will hold up in the face of Ryanair ticket resellers though, since it seems to be pretty clearly designed to make their life harder once again, but free replacement printing would offer them a way out.
After queueing for 1.5h in a single queue for the entire flight, served by one service crew person.
What happens if your phone is stolen, broken, discharged? Finally, I fly several times a month with different companies, does that mean I should have a circus of apps on my phone?
I hope someone will regulate this matter.
I have no problem with enabling smartphone-based payments and passes for people who like them, but companies should not be allowed to block out (or charge extra to) others who prefer not to tether themselves to a phone.
I fully agree that having the latest version of a phone/OS should not be treated as a requirement for access to services, especially essential ones.
Signal did this when my wife's Macbook could no longer be updated to the latest Apple OS version. Signal just stopped working for her completely on her laptop. She couldn't install the latest version of Signal due to her not being on the latest OS, and Signal won't allow the old version to work once it's outdated. We had to buy her a whole new laptop (not Apple this time) to get her back on Signal (something she relies on).
Yes, I know about the hacky workarounds to get the latest OS working on a Macbook, but fuck that noise.
I'm not keen on mobile apps in general, but I don't see a need for regulation here. Companies want customers. It's not in their interest to needlessly harass people with pointless technology requirements that drive people to competitors. No company has ever required "the newest smartphone" for everyday tasks.
I don't support a general right to refuse adoption of any and all new technologies. What I do support is a mandate to use open technologies wherever possible for infrastructure that no one can reasonably avoid. What we can't allow is that people who lose some oligopolist account can no longer live a normal life.
I agree with this. (The same would apply to restaurant menus.)
(In the case of restaurant menus, they could post a single copy near the entrance or somewhere that it can be seen by everyone in case they do not want to make multiple copies (and do not want to waste paper). E-paper displays might be used in case they sometimes change.)
Pay Ryanair 50 bucks for a printed boarding pass at the counter.
From my perspective, even a paid toilet (1) would be a better offering than this.
1. https://abcnews.go.com/Travel/Green/paying-pee-airlines-crit...
Another comment says that if any of those apply (or if you do not have a (compatible) smart phone) then you can still receive a boarding pass at the airport, although it seems that you will still need check-in online.
Almost all short haul airlines in Europe more-or-less resemble the Ryanair model now
From a personal computer there are zero requirements, I don't need to have a special OS, or application, or anything. On the mobile application side, I must have one of two authorized app stores, an account there, and perhaps a specific OS version. This is something that I find unfair in this business practice.
I have no doubt he's right, but says something about him and the company.
For the 737 max at least, they built a simulator training facility in Dublin so they could train their pilots faster for when the max returned to flight.
I wouldn't take anything their CEO says at face value though. He's often saying provocative things just to get news coverage (cheaper and more effective than traditional advertising), and admits to that himself.
Setting up rules to trick customers to make mistakes and then demand 60 euros for printing a sheet of paper is morally dishonest and I would say most don't do this.
Notice the euphemism of calling this "going digital". Everybody is already digital, using a pdf reader on their phone at the terminal, despite some companies discouraging this practice. That's not digital enough, is it?
[0]: https://youtu.be/Id-zzOGnN6A?t=102
Why does it matter whether the boarding pass barcode is scanned from a printed paper vs a phone screen?
Tracking where your passengers go on vacation would be useful data for them. Sheesh you could even track flights: "User was online at London Heathrow until 11:45, and was then offline, and came back online again in Madrid at 14:30, the corresponding flight at those times was EasyJet 78".
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I reckon you'll be able to print out a screenshot of the app and use it to check your bags in and get through security. They won't hold a flight up with checked bags at the gate - will cost them too much money.
In smaller airports (the ones Ryanair used to operate from) it's also sometimes their own barcode scanners before the gates that are dedicated to them.
I believe they will be able to enforce this in many places.
They can't collect your data from a printed sheet.