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Comment by meindnoch | Hacker News Reader

"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?

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Their app lets them exfiltrate data on you and use it for advertising/sell it to ad networks.

they say it is it's cause its greener but they could have used a website.

A pdf on your phone would've done that as well, but that's what they're explicitly banning with this move.

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.

Ryanair use scan-and-drop self-checkin of bags in many airports.

It would also be curious to see who pays for removal of persons once they are airside - eg in the case the flyer with nothing to check in who goes past airport security, but before RyanAir staff meet them at the gate.

Unless it's a TOTP style code and changes

Unlikely - that would require changes for non-airline barcode users (eg Airport Security, Duty Free, etc)

Yeah you are right

Flying now requires you to own a smartphone

And to install an app, which almost certainly has privacy invasion baked into the terms of use.

With Ryanair. Something to be avoided if at all possible, but a very bad precedent in any case.

Rather, enough people have smartphone that they won’t be object to using it as boarding pass.

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.

They didn't verify the passenger's identity at the gate?

ID is never checked at the gate for domestic flights, only international, at least in the US.

This was the case being referenced: https://abc7.com/post/wicliff-yves-fleurizard-stowaway-secur...

I have never been asked to show ID on domestic flights at the gate.

For a period after 9/11, ID was required to be shown at the gate on domestic flights. I don't recall when that stopped, but it's been a while (and apparently long enough ago that apparently some have never had to do it).

I seem to recall IDs occasionally being checked at the gate prior to 9/11 as well. Memory is fuzzy, but they weren't checking boarding passes or ids at security. But back then I would always get my boarding pass at the check-in counter (sometimes exchanging an actual ticket for the boarding pass).

Memory is fuzzy…

Yeah, I can’t recall well enough to agree with you, can’t remember enough to dispute it, either. That was a long time ago. :-)

I spent some time looking for old information, best I could come up with was this article [1] from 1996 about requiring photo ID at check-in, which doesn't mention checking at the gate, but does mention why the airlines might be happy to do it (protect revenue by making sure passengers don't fly on other people's tickets... unless they share their name with the other person). This article [2] , also from 1996, is a little bit less precise about if people are denied at check-in or by gate agents.

I think it's all quite hazy, because if you had no checked bags and it was a small airport, but you might just go to the gate and try to get your boarding pass there. That and 24 years have passed. :D

[1] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-09-11-fi-42564-...

[2] https://www.chicagotribune.com/1996/12/29/no-match-no-flight...

Wouldn't that be noticed when the actual passenger tried to board and the system said they were already on board?

>Why does it matter whether the boarding pass barcode is scanned from a printed paper vs a phone screen?

They can't collect your data from a printed sheet.

It's may be a dynamic QR code that changes at intervals.

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.

Does the QR code that you use when boarding have to be the same QR code that you use before security, though?

Maybe it’s nfc not qr.

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