Don’t Ryanair want customers?

ryanair invasion
Originally uploaded by Paolo Màrgari – paolomargari.it

Ryanair have now decided that people have to check in online and print out their boarding passes themselves, even if travelling with checked luggage

Here’s what they say about it themselves:

If you do not check-in online you will be required to pay the relevant fee to re-issue your boarding card at the airport (Euro 40/GBP 40).

Passengers travelling with checked luggage will be required to present their online boarding pass and checked baggage at the airport bag drop desk at least 2 hour prior to departure (bag drop desks will close strictly 40 minutes prior to scheduled flight departure).

I can immediately spot one problem with this:

People might be on holiday in a place without a printer. It is possible to check in up to two weeks in advance, but if you’re away for two weeks and a weekend, you have to find a computer and a printer while away.

I also think a £40 fine for not printing it is somewhat steep. (Perhaps there would be a business opportunity for providing internet and printer access in the airport for distraught travellers?)

There’s also another serious problem that my mum experienced while travelling back to Denmark yesterday:

In the “old” days, the people at the check-in desk would have a look at your hand luggage and tell you to check some of it in if it was too big.

But now that’s not possible any more, so to prevent people from abusing the hand luggage allowance, Ryanair now check hand luggage sizes in the boarding area.

But that’s ridiculous, because it’s too late to check it in! If your bag is too big, your options are to leave it behind or to stay behind with it. You can’t pay them to put it into the hold, and it’s too late to go back and check it in.

I predict this change will cause some severely annoyed customers to vow never to fly with Ryanair again. Is it really worth it?