Ryanair’s outrageous visa check policy
Filed under: Commentary,Travels
Since moving to the UK, we travel a lot, and when you travel this much, you know the tricks of the trade. We find deals on Kayak, then crosscheck the aircraft details with SeatGuru to make sure the plane is decent and to pick the best seat. We know which airlines are strategic partners, and we even pack our own first class amenities pack when traveling in coach. Even the little things like being able to brush your teeth before arriving can really make a difference!
So imagine our surprise when arriving at the departure gate last weekend only to be refused to board the plane to Dublin because we “didn’t follow Ryanair’s boarding procedures”. To make matters worse, it was the last flight of the night from the tiny Leeds-Bradford airport, we had tickets to see U2 the next night in Dublin, AND it was my wife’s birthday!
…..
So how exactly did this all go down? Well, we’re on top of things so we had checked in online and printed our boarding passes. We didn’t have bags to check and our carry-on’s were well under the 10kg limit thank you very much. We got to the airport about an hour early, straight to secuirty with passport and boarding pass in hand and breezed through. We sat down, grabbed a pint, and looked forward to meeting up with our friends that night in Dublin.
They called for boarding about 10 minutes before the flight was scheduled to leave and there was a mad rush to get in line. Already I started to wonder if we should have paid a bit more just to fly KLM.
As we’re waiting to board we took a closer look at our tickets.
The Visa Check statement in the upper right didn’t make a lot of sense to me.
Important for all non EU/EEA passengers this boarding pass must be checked and stamped at the document/visa check desk before going through security or travel will be refused.
- What the heck is a visa check desk? Isn’t this what they do when they check your passport when you ARRIVE? Last time we went to Dublin (also on Ryanair) they stamped an entry visa at Immigration in Dublin like just about everywhere else in the world.
- We already went through security and there wasn’t an issue.
- Surely if we needed a visa stamp we would have had to go through some government check point on our way to the gate. This happens a lot in Schiphol for example.
Anyway, it didn’t make sense and we were about to board anyway so let’s see what happens…
Gate Agent: You haven’t followed our check in procedures so you’re not going to be able to get on this flight.
Us: Ummm what?
GA: Non EU passengers need to have their visa checked at the check in desk before going through security. It says so on your tickets.
Us: No it doesn’t. It says something about a Visa Check Desk but the only time anyone’s checked mypassport for visas has been at Immigration.
GA: No, that means the Check In desk. They needed to check it there.
Us: Why would I have gone to the Check In desk when I checked in online and didn’t have any bags to check in?
GA: Because it says so on your ticket. That’s our policy.
Us: It doesn’t say anything about Check In on the ticket, I’m already checked in. What would they have done at the Check In desk?
GA: They need to check whether or not you need a visa and then initial your ticket. I can tell you that you don’t need one but you didn’t follow the procedure so our policy is to not let you board the plane.
Us: You’ve got to be kidding?! If you can tell me I don’t need a visa and all they do at the desk is sign it to say it’s ok, then why can’t you sign it now?!
GA: Because you didn’t follow the procedure… it’s your responsibility to read your ticket. The other non-EU passengers didn’t have a problem.
And so it went… no amount of reasoning, pleading, or tears would sway these two ladies to let us get on the plane. They started talking about taking us to the ticket desk to pay a change fee and fly out tomorrow when we got the hell out of there. The weekend was already going to be a short one and we weren’t about to pay hundreds of pounds more to Ryanair to change the ticket, then drive 2 hours home, only to come back again in the morning.
…..
So where from here? Well, it will be a loooong time before Ryanair sees another cent from us. I’m through. For me this goes down as just another of the many ways they try to nickel and dime you every step of the way. A quick look on Google shows many others with the same issue since Ryanair rolled this new plan out this summer. While they claim they need the policy due to new regulations for flying within the EU/EEA, it’s strange that no other carrier has implemented this.
And to Ryanair… I know you’re uber-low-cost, your logo looks like a 5 year old drew it in MS Paint, and you generally can’t be bothered to do things in a nice friendly way, but may I make a few suggestions?
If this isn’t just another scam to make more money you might consider:
- Despite your claim, it’s generally not more convenient to let passengers check-in online but then require them to go to Check In anyway.
- If you’re going to operate in a way completely counter to every other airline in the world, it’s bound to cause confusion and you should make a bit more effort to not piss off your customers. Maybe, just maybe, when the occasional person misses the notice, you can take 5 seconds to look at their passport at the gate.
- If you are going to stick with this… change the wording on your boarding pass to make it more explicitly clear. I’ve suggested some language below you’re free to use.
VISA CHECK Although you have checked in online YOU MUST STILL VISIT THE CHECK IN DESK AT THE AIRPORT to have your passport verified PRIOR TO GOING TO THE GATE. The check in desk closes 40 minutes before your departure time. If you do not comply, you will be refused to fly.
Additional Reading
- Ryanair defends visa check for non-EU citizens – Irish Times
- Ryanair visa check scam – I Hate Ryanair
13 comments
I love your write up about what assholes Ryanair is. I hope they go under for the thievery and the shear scoundrel-ness ( I know that is not a word) they project on people. Shame on the ignorant people enforcing such stupidity. They’ll get theirs.
[...] through miscommunication and airport/airline indifference (here’s the full story), Jen and David were unable to make the concert and we bought their tickets from [...]
[...] He was at the airport and passed through security well in advance of the boarding time. And yet, Ryanair wouldn’t let David and his wife onto the plane. Why not? Because they hadn’t visited a Ryanair “visa check” desk. [...]
I can pretty well remember former Ryanair’s spokesman David Gering during a Belgian TV show. He said that given the low-price strategy of the company, Ryanair will never intend to comply with EU regulations in terms of reimbursement or passengers care. So basically (and this happened to me once) if your flight is cancelled you’ll never get more that what you paid for your ticket although by law Ryanair would have to pay indemnities, take care of your hotel costs, …
You write “it will be a loooong time before Ryanair sees another cent from us”. Strangely many people complain about Ryanair, the rude way they treat customers (can we still speak about “customers” in the case of Ryanair ?) and still this company makes profits and is the only one to outperform the Dow Jones (see my article at http://customersminds.blogspot.com/2009/06/lheure-ou-british-airways-propose-ses.html) .
What do you think about this ?
Pierre – For everyone who says “I’ll never fly RA again!”, there’s someone else who says “Hooray, more free seats for me.”. Those who know how to “work” RA have a great time flying for £2 return.
David –
I’m sorry you missed your concert, but I can’t see your point. It’s written on your boarding card “Must be Stamped before Security”. It’s right there. I believe it also comes up when you buy the ticket online. It says “must be stamped”, but you didn’t get it stamped. I can’t see your grounds for complaint?
True, it does say something about getting a stamp, but as I mention above, the wording here could be improved.
More importantly though, the question is how much notice needs to be given when operating in a different way than what’s expected. Usually a change in policy that could significantly affect your customers is brought with ample notifications and even a phase in period to accommodate people that missed it the first time.
For example, if hotels suddenly started canceling reservations unless you phoned the day before to confirm your arrival, I’d expect a significant effort on their part to notify customers of the change as well as some flexibility when the program first rolled out.
If Ryanair really has customer convenience in mind with this policy (and not just trying to scam people out of more money), there are some simple things they can change to improve it.
Believe it or not this is an *improvement* over the way this used to work. Previously you had to PAY £5 per person per flight to be allowed to go to the check-in desk to have your visa checked, even if you met all other criteria for web check-in! If you hadn’t paid, you had to first go to their ticket desk to pay the fee, THEN go to the check-in desk for the check. There was no way around this (believe me I tried!). Fortunately they did offer a refund on this fee though it was a painful, slow and complicated process. No amount of reasoning would get them to skip the fee+refund process. Fortunately this situation only lasted a couple of months and now we have the process you’ve described which is still absurd, but it’s a lot better than it was!
I like your complaint. It happen to me recently too.
It is not the lowest and cheapest airline that they brag about. I also have travelled many times to France and well aware that I do not require a visa to enter the country. I feel the airline is discriminating other nationalities.
i sympathise with you. My girlfriend and i were denied boarding 3 days ago because of the same issue. Missed the flight only because the asshole of a ground’s crew closed the gate 5 minutes before departure knowing that i ran my heart out back to the check in counter through the security checks. Sadly, i can only give them my 2 cents with a complaint letter. 600 euros of France down the drain.
My case is somewhat different. I had a checked bag and so went to the check in counter to check the bag. I gave the lady my documents and boarding pass. I realized later, while being denied boarding, that she “forgot” to stamp my boarding pass. I missed the flight and had to rebook, paying ryanair’s 100euro fee to do so. They have since failed to refund that money and failed to take responsibility for their employee messing up.
If I were a conspiracy theorist, I’d say she was told to “forget” on purpose just to get us non EU citizens into the situation of missing a flight, and then paying 100euro to rebook.
I am from the US and so don’t really know EU business laws. It is surely unethical what happened. Does anyone know if it was illegal? –cdh@cox.net
I promised myself off Ryan air but my wife booked a ticket & the same illegal visa thing happened to me. They create their own law & the watchdogs do nothing. It’s the peasants who ensure Ryanair endures anyway: like Macdonalds. Bad food? Unhealthy? Skanky? Two pounds? I’m in!
[...] of the quarter would have to be falling for one of Ryanair’s dirty tricks (thieves!), but that nasty memory is totally outshone by the #1 best moment: seeing my beloved [...]
Me and my husband just got denied to board onto the Ryanair flight going to Barcelona for the long weekend. We’ve been travelling a lot in the last 8 years and never thought we needed to read the boarding pass to look for such ‘important’ policies, especially there is no gate or seat information on the boarding pass. The staff at the gate asked us to wait when we actually could try to run back to the check-in desk to get it done. There are 3 others had the same problems and we were all shocked. We asked the staff to check all our travel documents but they refused to do so. We will NEVER fly with Ryanair again. We heard enough bad news about Ryanair after we bought our ticket but never expected it to be this bad. I suspect they just want to rip another 100 pounds off from passenger. Now my questions is if the travel insurance would cover my loss? If anybody has done a claim before in this case?
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