Ryanair charged family £165 for boarding passes for ‘unchecking’ themselves

A furious family have found themselves in a row with budget airline Ryanair over a confusing check-in issue.

Damian Lloyd, 50, from Neath, claims he had checked in his family digitally a month before their flight and had brought printed versions of their boarding passes to the airport.

However, they allege that the airline said they had "unchecked themselves" and so they could not scan Damian and his three family members in.

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The barcodes didn’t work and so the family-of-three claim they were charged an additional £165 to be checked back in at the desk.

Dad Damian said that he tried to get his money back however Ryanair said the fee was justified. The airline has apparently since referred Damian to a dispute resolution service, states the BBC.

The family had been set to go on a 10-day trip to Gran Canaria in July this year. He was set to travel with his wife and daughter and had even pid extra to reserve seats.

But, he claims he was left "in total shock" when none of their boarding passes would scan, and that a Ryanair staff member was also confused when they went to the check-in desk.

Damian said: "He looked on the computer, and our names and seat numbers came up. But for some reason [the boarding passes] weren't scanning."

He claims that the check-in employee had no idea why they wouldn’t scan.

However, as passengers cannot board a Ryanair flight without their passes being scanned they had to either wait for customer service to open for the day – but they would miss their flight – or pay for new printed passes.

They chose to pay for the new boarding ticket as the next flight to their destination was apparently three days later.

Damien said that the employee thought the issue was a computer glitch and claims they said he could get his money back.

Sadly, this was mot the case and Ryanair rejected his claim saying there was no fault with its system.

Damien claims that they initially said he had not verified his identity and then said he had unchecked the day before flying.

A spokesperson for Ryanair told Daily Star: "The passengers referred to were checked in for their flight from Bristol to Gran Canaria (23 July).

"They 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 as they failed to check themselves back in for this flight."

Damien denies this claim and says he did not go on the website after checking in.

It is apparently possible to uncheck from a flight before setting off – sometimes people do this to change the name on a reservation or due to another impact on their flight.

The Ryanair help site states: "You will need to contact us to get unchecked from your flight. Then, you can make the change online or through the App."

Ryanair has referred Mr Lloyd to AviationADR.

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