A class action lawsuit started being formed last year against Ryanair, an Irish low cost airline who likes to hit customers with ridiculous hidden fees like €45 to check in at the airport or €160 to change your name on the ticket. I'm sure every passenger has read all the fees in detail before buying one of their cheap tickets, right? Sign up here.
If you have ever flown on Ryanair, there's a good chance you had paid some crazy fees for something. Or maybe you know someone who was screwed over by Ryanair. Join the case.
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€45 To Check In At The Airport
Yep they got us and that really made us angry. Last year, Ryanair forced me to pay ~$100 (€45 x 2) because their website wouldn't let me check in and print my boarding pass before arriving to the airport. I should definitely pay a fee for that right? Most people can check in beforehand, but sometimes when you are in a foreign country, the computers in hotels or mobile phones don't work right (have you ever had problems?). Or sometimes a website is the problem. No matter what, Ryanair doesn't care, even if their website isn't working. Ryanair Programmer: “Watch this… lets make a few million dollar, ready?”
Happy to NOT be flying @Ryanair from Berlin after getting RIPPED off with check in fees. If the website doesn't work you still pay 45eur!
— The Reward Boss (@TheRewardBoss) July 2, 2015
I don't mind airlines charging separately for those services/products I want to use. It is annoying to get nickel and dimed for every little thing but it also can be annoying to pay for things I don't want or need but are packaged anyway. Some fees, however, are absurd. Well, Ryanair is laughing all the way to the bank with their huge profits after flying 106 million people in the 12 months ending March 2016. If 1% of people need to check in at the airport, that's €47.7 million profit right there. Is it profitable and more airlines are heading that direction.
CaseHub.com, a crowd-sourced legal site, has 5,350 participants (including me) so far. Several articles say they are seeking 75,000 participants for a £315 million lawsuit. Join the case.
What do you think? Do you like low cost airlines or hate them?
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OMG! I didn’t realize how absurd the hidden fees are.
Is that the ONLY example you can cite?
Have flown Ryanair once and will never do so again. They turned me off of all LCCs and ULCCs forever.
Would you like to share you own examples?
Ryanair. One word, only the R is capitalized.
Thanks Dex
How many times and how many different ways can you get the airlines name wrong?!
It’s Ryanair.
A couple ways it seems. Fixed.
1. They’re not hidden – they are made clear at purchase and in other places on the website.
2. Why shouldn’t they charge for extra services – we live in a free market?
3. A name change is not permitted by any airline that I know of.
4. It costs a fortune to maintain large numbers of check in staff, a fortune which other people have to pay for.
5. You can check in fourteen days ahead if you have reserved a seat and four if you haven’t. They don’t fly to the sort of places where internet access is that much of a problem.
I’m flying to Dublin on Monday for <£15 all in – a normal, not sale, price. I don't expect and won't get any form of service other than to arrive safely and on time. Why should I pay for anything extra? I'm praying you lose this trivial and vexatious case.
1. Are they clear and up front about it? Not so much in these screen shots. Yes, they are all listed in the fees page. They should give a warning to print it out and be familiar all the fees.
2. Agreed. They should and I am happy to pay for those services that I want. But…what if they charged €1,000 for check in and then purposely made their website error out. Would that be ok in your book? How about €1,000 to use the toilet – is that ok? It is a free market.
3. Now you know at least one. Ryanair. It’s listed right here.
4. Agreed, but a large # of staff are not needed. Multi-purpose Self check-in machine can do the job. See this article “Ryanair’s check in fee – does the story hold up?”
5. They increased it to checkin up to 30 days in advance or up to 2 hours before the flight (according to their site), which is more than enough for most people to do it from home before they leave for their entire trip. I could not have predicted the website wouldn’t work from multiple places. I think it’s reasonable to expect that is one must check in online…that the website is working.
People have a choice as to which Airline they fly with. Ryanair’s fees are stated clearly on their website. Over the years I have consistently chosen Ryanair to fly to Dublin as they have always been better value than Aer Lingus. Usually about £20 return which is similar in cost to the bus journey when I arrive! If people don’t read the website properly then they are to blame and not Ryanair.
That’s how it sounds:
– We want money!!!
– Why?
– Because we don’t read terms and conditions.
– ???
But seriously, you can get extremely cheap tickets but you have to accept the conditions. Everything is written on the website (not hidden).
If you don’t like it you can choose from dozens of other airlines. Oh, you don’t want to pay 5x more for a ticket? Well…
If you READ the information, check your details (so you don’t need to change your name later 😉 ), do the check-in and you are at the airport on time you won’t have any surprises.
I didn’t see anywhere in the terms what happens if their website doesn’t work and you can’t check in. But I do agree that a lot of things can be avoided just by double checking your details. Now that you can check in for flights long in advance, the check-in process itself seems kind of pointless.
I have never experienced website problems. But if there is, try it half an hour later. I am sure it’s not the “Ryanair programmer” who wants to steal your money. If no website – no online sales. They would be loosing money. Think about it, not the whole world is against you. 😉
I love this part: “the computers in hotels or mobile phones don’t work right”
What? Are you serious? Have you ever been in a hotel?
If you don’t know how to do it ask for help but don’t blame others…
The online check-in might seem to be pointless but again, if that’s what you need to do for almost free tickets then do it (or choose another company and pay).
Of course they are not doing it on purpose 🙂
Are you saying you’ve never had a problem on any website? That is impressive. I have lived in hotels for years for work (continuously) and have traveled extensively. So, yes, I can speak with lots of experience. Most of the time things work fine, but there are countless times when trying to connect a phone or laptop to wifi runs into problems.
We are talking about Ryanair, right?
I have never experienced any problem on the Ryanair website.
I thought you had difficulties to reach the webpage of Ryanair from hotels. If you have internet problems it’s nothing to do with Ryanair.
I read the article again and trying to find the problem, as a frequent flyer maybe I can help.
What you are complaining about:
– airport check-in fee
Solution: check-in online. If you are not able to find internet (in a hotel, bar or most airports has free Wi-Fi) you still have the opportunity to do it in the airport. It’s an extra service, you have to pay for it…
-fee for changing name.
Solution: write your name correctly. If you want to give your ticket to someone else it’s easier to buy another one. Ryanair tickets are extremely cheap.
-the company has profit!
Yes, that’s what a company does, no solution for that…
The prices are not hidden, everything is written online.
I hope it was useful.
Is there anything else?
Let me rephrase. Open the website and try to check in. The website won’t allow you to complete check in. Try again later…same problem. Same from phone, personal computer, hotel computer.
I see. You can check in 4 days before the flight. Are you sure you didn’t try too early? (It used to be one week but lately they changed it for 4 days) I faced the same problem, then I read the info and later was fine. If it’s not the case I don’t know.
It was the day before & the morning of the flight. Some of the low cost carriers, like Ryanair, now allow you to check in up to 30 days before (source link). I think that’s the key, get your checkins done and printed from home before you leave.
“Customers who purchase seats can check-in between 30 days and up to 2 hours before their scheduled flight departure time.
Customers who don’t purchase seats can check-in between 4 days and up to 2 hours before their scheduled flight departure time.”
If you can check in 30 days before, it seems the check in should just be part of the purchase of the ticket. Why have an extra step that doesn’t really do anything (other than to make a profit on fees).
What did the customer service say?
I can check in at the airport.
And they made you pay?
Never happened anything like this to me.
Sorry!
Once I bought a ticket with the bad date because the month calendar on their site was not stable so after I paid and received payment notifications I saw it was the bad date so I left it as a gift because the changing fees were more than the ticket. If they really care for their customers they could make a quick fix solution but they gain a lot from our mistakes. Another time, their flight was more than 3 hours late and because they announced this with 20 minute after the estimated departure hour I have lost the possibility to change my next flight that I was going to lose. This costed me 90€. Recently I wanted to buy 2 tickets for a single destination and while I was buying one the other changed wit 130€ plus. Monday morning their site told me that there are no more tikes for the flight I wanted, I gave up for the ticket I already had because There were no more connections and Monday night I found that in fact there are 4 more seats. Another 30€ lost. And I should mention that the ticket of 28€ I have bought after a week was at 9€. They should not play with prices and flight availability like this because we lose money
Why should they care? They are extremely profitable and all these mistakes we make is just more profit. For many destinations I search, they are the only reasonably priced flight. One one hand it’s great, on the other hand there is a good chance you will have to pay stiff fees / penalties, and if something goes wrong, there is no one to help (just like Easyjet).
The bottom line is that RyanAir is a predatory company that uses unscrupulous tactics to fatten its bottom line. First, check-in fees are not an industry standard and therefore cannot be anticipated by the average traveler. Second, and more insidiously, these tactics prey on the technologically challenged … namely seniors. This is repugnant corporate behavior by any standards.