Ryanair denies reports of charging a fee for digital boarding passes

Ryanair has issued a denial Monday after some outlets reported the Ireland-based budget airline made travelers checking in put down more money to select a seat to obtain a mobile boarding pass.

"This is false. There is no charge for a Ryanair digital boarding pass — ever," a Ryanair spokesperson told FOX Business. "All Ryanair passengers can pay for a reserved seat if they wish or if passengers wish to avoid this seat fee, they can select a randomly allocated seat entirely free of charge."

Social media users had lobbed criticism at the airline over the weekend. Some included apparent screen grabs that seemed to show the Ryanair app saying to "get your boarding pass now and avoid queuing at the airport by adding a seat."

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Ryanair has a seating policy that involves customers either buying reserved seats or free seats. For the latter, those will randomly "be assigned to you free of charge when you check in, between 24 hours and 2 hours prior to departure," according to a webpage about its seat policy.

Reserved seat fees differ based on the type of seat and whether the customer is doing so while booking their flight or after, Ryanair’s website indicated. 

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The Ireland-based airline said on its Help Center that customers who have checked in can get to their boarding pass "at any time" on its website or mobile app. 

On top of reserved seats, Ryanair has a slew of other fees that its passengers can encounter. They include asking customers to pay to check in at the airport, to get their boarding passes printed out at the counter and to check luggage, among others. 

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It flew 11.7 million customers on over 66,400 trips last month. So far in the 2024 fiscal year, it has seen 134.2 million total passengers, according to the company. 

About 168.5 million people used the airline over the course of its prior fiscal year.