Ryanair scraps check-in desks

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Ryanair scraps check-in desks as it charges passengers £10 to print tickets at home (and a £40 fine if you forget)
 
Ryanair customers will have to pay a £10 surcharge when booking a return flight as the budget airline moves to abolish check-in desks.  The move means passengers buying flights online will no longer benefit from the free booking service.

From May 20 anyone booking a seat online will be required to print their own tickets and will pay a £5 surcharge for each flight, bringing the excess on a return flight to £10.  And customers who forget to bring their ticket with them will have to fork out for a £40 'boarding card re-issue fee' on arrival at their designated airport.

The new fee policy, replaces Ryanair's previous practice of offering free online ticketing and charging £10 for anyone who opted for face-to-face check-in.
The old policy discriminated against passport-holders from outside the European Economic Area, who were barred until recently from checking in via Ryanair's website.  Under the new policy, everyone will be treated the same - because now nobody can avoid paying to check in. The Dublin-based firm says the only exceptions will be on tickets offered at fee-included prices of £5 or less.

Ryanair spokesman Stephen McNamara said the airline hoped to shut down all of its traditional check-in desks at 146 airports by October 1 - but quicker if possible.

However, the firm will keep staffing desks to collect people's checked-in bags - as well as potentially hefty income from passengers arriving without their printed-out tickets. He also said the new system will further lower the airline's costs which will in turn allow it to drop prices for passengers by next winter.  In-built restrictions on Ryanair's on-line ticketing system mean that many customers will be unable to print out their tickets at the time of booking, raising the chances for penalty charges from customers who think they've completed the process.

Ryanair says its computer system won't allow customers booking more than 15 days before their flight, or within four hours of one, to check in at that time.   So people booking farther in advance - common since Ryanair's cheapest deals often are offered months ahead and snapped up quickly - will have to get in the habit of revisiting the website again nearer the time of their trip.    And last-minute fliers will face an effective £40 surcharge on their fares.

The airline also announced it will no longer accept bookings for unaccompanied passengers under the age of 16 years from today. All new bookings will require passengers - including infants and domestic flight passengers - to hold a valid passport or valid national identity card