Ryanair, the European no-frills airline that has been pushing the boundaries of country law and airline traditions in search of lower fares, has met stiff resistance in Spain. A judge there just ruled that Ryanair’s rule that passengers print out boarding passes before coming to the airport or face a €40 ($55) boarding-pass-printing-fee to be “abusive.”
The airline has instituted this rule in an effort to keep staffing levels low at airports and claims that since tickets are purchased on the Internet, there is no reason that boarding passes shouldn’t be handled on the Internet as well.
A judge in Barcelona said that, under international air travel conventions, Ryanair can neither demand passengers turn up at the airport with their boarding pass, nor charge them €40 (£34) if they do not.
“I declare abusive and, therefore, null, the clause in the contract by which Ryanair obliges the passenger to take a boarding pass to the airport,” Judge Barbara Cordoba said.
“The customary practice over the years has been that the obligation to provide the boarding pass has always fallen on the airline.”
Of course, in typical combative Ryanair style, their representative claims that the airline may just refuse to have anyone at the gate to process boarding passes. It is an extreme position, but the airline aims to force the Spanish court’s hand in their appeal.
“The court is wrong,” said Ryanair spokesman Daniel de Carvalho, who claims that forgetting a boarding pass is almost the same as forgetting a passport. “You need the boarding card to fly. If a passenger arrives without a boarding card, we find an ad hoc solution to their problem. The €40 is a penalty for doing that. We serve the boarding card in exactly the same way that the passenger makes the booking, by internet.”
De Carvalho went on: “If the problem is the €40 charge for this service, we’ll simply stop offering the service. That, of course, will mean the passenger who arrives without a boarding card cannot fly.”
How do you feel about a boarding pass fee? If Ryanair is doing it, soon Alegiantair and Spirit will be considering it and just as they did with first-checked-bag baggage fees, consumer-friendly American Airlines will be looking at the charge for their coach passengers who are not members of their elite frequent flier programs.
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.
