Ryanair scraps check-in desks as it charges passengers £10 to print tickets at home (and a £40 fine if you forget)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worl...ne-forget.html

Ryanair scraps check-in desks as it charges passengers £10 to print
tickets at home (and a £40 fine if you forget)

By Chris Johnson

Last updated at 1:41 PM on 13th May 2009

* Comments (0)
* Add to My Stories

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.
Ryanair

New charges: Ryanair is introducing another raft of surcharges with a
£10 fee for printing your ticket and a £40 fine if your forget to
bring it to the airport

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, which is likely to infuriate fliers, 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.

European Union litigation has forced Ryanair to change the way it
lists the costs of its tickets to include taxes and some - but not all
- fees up front.

Advertised 'free' tickets can still end up costing £20 to £80.

For example, Ryanair adds £10 or more to each round-trip ticket per
passenger if it's purchased with normal credit or debit cards, making
the charge virtually impossible to avoid.

Nonetheless, this cost is omitted from the initial price. The airline
defends this practice because it offers the option of free booking for
holders of a restrictive, ill-marketed Visa Electron card that is not
available in major countries.

Ryanair increasingly celebrates its penchant for imposing hard-to-
avoid fees.

Chief Executive Michael O'Leary in recent months has alternately
baffled, inflamed and amused press conferences with claims - now
conceded to be sharp exercises in fanning free publicity - that he
might introduce charges to use aircraft toilets and make Ryanair's
fattest passengers pay extra.

He also has floated the idea of selling branded toilet paper with his
own face on each sheet.

* 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.