Hacker News Reader

Comment by detritus | Hacker News Reader

It's ok, many flights from Europe are on budget carriers that require the installation of their app in place of printed boarding passes, so this isn't really an issue.

/s igned someone very much opposed to having to install an app to travel to and from my partner's country in the EU. I'm decreasingly enjoying 'the future'.

View on HN

Generally speaking you can use the mobile website and add the QR based boarding pass to Google Wallet that way - but if you dig into the TOS you'll almost certainly find an alternative way to get a printed pass.

For example Ryanair, who went 'fully digital' last year and stopped accepting self-printed passes, will provide a free of charge boarding pass at the airport so long as you have already checked-in online before arriving at the airport.

Which is funny because for years they'd gleefully charge you 30 quid to print one at the airport if you dared to turn up with only a PDF.

Just one more reason to boycott Ryanair

I mean they're the discount bus of the skies, designed for students and people on weekend breaks inter-EU. Avoid flying to Paris (Buvais) or certain other 'city' airports, keep your carry-on luggage within limits, and they're basically fine.

They've a safety record that's beyond reproach, and where else are you going to get flights for ~€50 across Europe?

If nothing else they disrupted a predatory pricing cartel. I'm old enough to remember when a flight England->Ireland or Spain->Portugal could be the guts of €300 or €400. Now we have a complete revision on pricing and it paved the way for multiple good budget carriers like Transavia.

Not to mention Michael O'Leary being an absolute rogue with his PR - particularly the recent spat with Elon Musk

https://www.euronews.com/business/2026/01/21/big-idiot-boost...

I've seen that once and you could just enter the booking ID in the boarding pass collection terminals and they scan that QR code instead of the one on the app.

This stuff isn't as rigid as they make it out to be.

I've flown with many European budget carriers and have never once seen this requirement. Sure, they might charge for or not provide printed boarding passes, but they've always sent me a PDF or PNG boarding pass by e-mail or provided one through their website. That, in my book, is a non-issue. Forcing an app is a huge issue, and shouldn't be legal if the only reasonable way to get the app is agreeing to the draconian conditions of one of two gatekeeping companies subject to foreign jurisdictions.

I never install any apps, I just show the pdf

Reply on news.ycombinator.com