From today, Europe’s biggest budget airline will not allow passengers to fly using print-outs of boarding passes. Instead, travellers will be expected to present the pass from the Ryanair app on a smartphone. The airline says the move will mean “a much-improved customer experience for the last remaining passengers still using paper”.
The airline has chosen one of the quietest times of the year to bring in the policy. But how will the “Digital Boarding Pass” (DBP) policy work – and what happens if the traveller is not a smartphone user, or their phone battery runs out?
These are the key questions and answers.
What exactly has Ryanair changed this morning?
Since 2009, Ryanair has demanded passengers check in online at least two hours before their flight. Anyone who fails to comply faces a £55 airport check-in fee.
Until today, once checked in, you could print out the boarding pass and bring it with you to use at the airport, to access security and to board the aircraft.
In the past, plenty of passengers, many of whom have the Ryanair app on a smartphone, have chosen to bring a print-out as a backup.
Indeed, when I checked in for my 12 November flight to Germany a day ahead, I was told: “Make sure to print and bring your boarding passes to the airport or access them through the Ryanair app” and even “boarding passes must be printed for use”.
But Ryanair says those are no longer acceptable. Oddly, though, you can use a paper boarding pass that is printed out at the airport by ground staff working for Ryanair – at no charge.
Why is Ryanair changing its boarding pass policy?
The airline says 85-90 per cent of Ryanair passengers already use digital boarding passes on smartphones. The policy that took effect this morning is intended to shift the remainder onto the Ryanair app. The airline says the DBP policy will “lower airport costs and fares” and improve customer service.
Passengers will be able to get real-time updates on boarding, gates, and delays – with “live notifications from Ryanair’s Operations Centre during disruption”. These are definitely passenger benefits. But the airline also has the opportunity to sell to passengers via its app, such as offering at-seat delivery of a ham and cheese panini for around £6.
Ryanair also claims the planet will win, with 300 tonnes of paper saved each year.
What if I don’t have a smartphone?
Perhaps surprisingly, it won’t matter – so long as you check in online, or get someone else to do it for you. The same applies if your phone battery runs out or you leave your smartphone on the train to the airport. Ryanair chief executive, Michael O’Leary, told me: “The big concern that people have is: what happens if I lose my battery or I lose my phone?
“If you lose your phone, no issue. As long as you’ve checked in before you get to the airport, we’ll reissue a paper boarding pass at the airport free of charge. But you have to have checked in before you get to the airport.
“Also, if your battery dies or something happens, once you’ve checked in, we’ll have your sequence number anyway at the boarding gate. We’ll take you, you’ll get on. So nobody should worry about it. Just make sure you check in online before you get to the airport, and then all will be fine.”
People travelling with young children or accompanying non-smartphone users can carry all the boarding passes for the booking on a single phone.
But the move could still alarm some travellers?
Yes. This change may not cost money, but it could cost time and add stress. It’s all very well saying, “see Customer Services at the airport”, but the possibility of a battery failure adds to the list of “things that could possibly go wrong” that we all carry in our heads when going on a journey. The move adds to the number of hurdles potentially faced by travellers.
Only a small proportion of passengers will have something go awry. But the new policy may alienate some passengers. Anyone who doesn’t like the insistence on a smartphone can simply fly with someone else. Ryanair is on its own in making these demands of passengers.
What if airport Wi-Fi is poor or I have no mobile data?
Once you have checked in online, your DBP is available offline in the Ryanair app.
What if I’m visually impaired and need special assistance?
Ryanair says: “Our DBP meets all accessibility standards and special assistance is available at all airports.”
What happens when the IT system goes down?
So many aviation processes are automated that the airline industry is particularly vulnerable to IT failure – or a cyber attack, as we saw at London Heathrow, Brussels, Dublin and elsewhere in September, when hackers attacked a ground-handling system.
Ryanair accepts that a cyber attack is a risk, but in a statement to investors the airline says it has “an incident response plan in place that sets out ways for people throughout the Group to identify, mitigate the impact of, and effectively deal with data breaches”.
Don’t some countries still demand paper boarding passes?
Yes. Ryanair makes a special case of flights from Morocco, where the government insists passengers must have paper boarding passes that can be officially stamped.
The airline says: “Passengers flying from Morocco must check in online as normal and then present their DBP at the airport to collect a printed boarding pass.”
Does smartphone boarding represent the future for airline passengers?
It represents the near future for Ryanair passengers. Other airlines will be watching to see how the travelling public reacts to the new policy.
After Ryanair introduced the “online check-in only” policy in 2009, the only airline that followed suit was Wizz Air.
But apps showing QR codes represent transient technology, just as paper tickets and boarding passes did in the past. The next step could be a version of digital ID that you tap on a reader, or simply facial recognition of your right to travel if you have verified your identity online or on arrival at the airport.
For example, Delta Air Lines has a “Digital ID” option for passengers at its Atlanta hub that allows them to pass through the security checkpoint and board the plane using only facial recognition.
Decius Valmorbida, president of travel for Amadeus, says the airport experience will soon feel far easier in many parts of the world. He told me: “Biometric touch points essentially will grant you access to where you need to go next. You don’t even need to have gates – you could have a free flow.
“As you walk through the hallways with cameras, they are scanning your face, and that is providing the information [about whether] you are allowed to be going to that direction.”
Podcast: Ryanair’s Dara Brady explains the new policy to Simon Calder’s daily travel podcast
