We had to pay £165 after our Ryanair boarding passes didn’t work – but the airline said it was our fault
A FAMILY were left out of pocket after their Ryanair boarding passes didn’t work – and the airline charged them again.
Damian Lloyd had booked flights to Gran Canaria with the budget airline for a 10-day holiday with his family.
He said that he checked in a month before the flight and printed their boarding passes out.
However, after arriving at the airport with his wife and daughter, staff at the check-in desk were left baffled after they didn’t scan.
Mr Lloyd, 50, told the BBC: “He looked on the computer, and our names and seat numbers came up.
“But for some reason [the boarding passes] weren’t scanning. He didn’t know why.”
As their flight was early in the morning, Ryanair‘s customer service was not open yet to discuss the issue.
They were given the option of waiting for it to open and miss their flights, or pay for new boarding passes, costing the family £165.
One of Ryanair’s steepest fees is to print boarding passes at the airport for anyone who doesn’t check in, which costs £55 per person.
Mr Lloyd ran into further problems after he was initially told he would be able to apply for a refund, due to the issue not being their fault.
However, Ryanair then said it was the family’s fault – as they unchecked themselves online.
Mr Lloyd said he was left in “total shock,” having flown with Ryanair before and having no problem with the extra fees the airline charges.
He added: “If I had made the mistake I’d put my hands in the air and pay but I did have the right passes.”
A Ryanair spokesperson said: “[The family] unchecked themselves on the website on 22 July and ignored the pop-up that warned them they would have to check in again and generate new boarding passes.
“As they didn’t have valid boarding passes, they were correctly charged the airport check-in fee.”
Another couple were caught out by the same problem last month.
Ruth and Peter Jaffe had booked Ryanair flights from Stansted to Bergerac, only to realise they had printed their return boarding passes, not their outgoing ones.
The couple were then charged £110 at the airport to reprint their tickets.
Ruth and Peter Jaffe were charged £55 each to reprint their tickets, after accidentally printing their return boarding passes.
Here are some other ways Ryanair catches passengers out with extra fees.