Ryanair tries forcing app downloads by eliminating paper boarding passes | Hacker News Reader

Ryanair tries forcing app downloads by eliminating paper boarding passes

arstechnica.com

35 pointssipofwater18 comments

Should not be allowed. Lots of elderly people use Ryanair and they're often not great with apps. O'Leary calling them stupid is no addition.

I use Ryanair and the app is decent but it should not be mandatory to fly

The elderly had more than a decade to learn how to use a phone.

I hope you get time enough to be old

The discerning should also have the choice not to be forced into the app economy and all the crap that comes with it.

Do you talk to your own mother like that?

yeah they seem to enjoy having other people looking after them

and you had more than a decade to learn how to be snarky on HN

To be honest, I don’t think you’ll need to use the app. I get my passes via email and add them to Apple Wallet.

In some airports, printing the pass is actually free, they have a dedicated vending machine just for this.

They are not saying that you can not print the pass yourself, I suspect this move will save a lot of time and money which, ultimately, is a good thing for everyone.

They want to charge a check-in fee if you don’t do it online, I would not be surprised if they have a lot of people wasting time doing it in-person instead of doing it online. This could speed customer who actually have luggage.

What am I missing?

It does say that paper boarding passes won't exist at all. No printing at the airport. And they claim this makes flying "greener".

They also call passengers who don't check-in beforehand "stupid".

The online check-in opens 48 hours before the flight and you get a notification, no reason to delay this and your life harder inside the airport and potentially lose your flight.

Still confused about the no paper thing, you could print the digital pass given It has the gate qr code

maybe this is a case of "fire your customers"

You end up with a bunch of compliant customers, sticky relationships and a data mining revenue stream.

next step is to fire customer service and replace with ai chatbots.

United Airlines has been doing some similar, it takes a lot of effort to get a paper boarding pass or do anything via the web.

Haven't had a problem getting printed boarding passes or getting stuff done via United's website myself, but I might be unusual -- I use them a lot.

Try printing one at the airport - it now takes 4 clicks.

While I never fly on Ryan, the question here would be whether, as the article suggests but isn't completely clear, digital boarding passes are actually app-only, or whether, like most airlines, you can get an image boarding pass from the website or by email that is meant to be displayed on a phone.

App-only would be dubious.

Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45877027

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45877027

I didn't actually need another reason to not use Ryanair, but thanks anyway.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com