In an aim to speed up travel and lower costs, Europe’s biggest budget airline, Ryanair, on Wednesday annnouned that it has moved to 100 per cent digital boarding passes. Following this decision, passengers presenting boarding passes at airports will no longer be accepted to fly with Ryanair.
The European airliner said that all the passengers will have to check in online before arriving at the airport. It added already 90 per cent of its 206 million passengers have opted to the digital method, as they are using their smartphones to show boarding passes.
Earlier in 2009, Ryanair had asked the passengers to check in online at least two hours before their flight, as failing to comply would cost them £55 airport check-in fee.
Though several passengers did bring a print-out as a backup, they had been using the Ryanair app on a smartphone.
Why Go Digital?
Citing 85-90 per cent of Ryanair passengers already use digital boarding passes on smartphones, the airliner said that “Digital Boarding Pass” (DBP) policy would improve customer service.
The firm further stated that they will update passengers with live notifications from Ryanair’s Operations Centre during disruption. Among other things, the airliner claims that with their new move, over 300 tonnes of paper will be saved every year.
What If Passengers Dont Have Smartphone?
The airliner said that they also have solved the issue for those passengers who don’t use smartphones. The passengers will get their boarding passes reissued at the airport free of charge, provided they checked in before getting into the airport.
Also, in case the battery dies before boarding, the passengers will be able to board the flight as their sequence number is already registered with the airliner. The only condition Ryanair imposed is that they will have to checked in before online.
Also, those flying with young children or accompanying non-smartphone users can carry all the boarding passes can use a single phone for the booking.
Concerns:
Though Ryanair cleared most of the passengers’ concerns, a few more erupted, including IT failure or cyber attack.
Ryanair did agree to these concerns but assured that it has an incident response plan in place to look after these issues.
Also, they made an exception for passengers flying from Morocco as the government insists passengers must have paper boarding passes which could be stamped. Ryanair said that the passenger from Morocco will have to check in online as normal. But they can collect a printed boarding pass after presenting their DBP at the airport.
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