WTF? Ryanair reduces free check-in to only 4 days before departure

It seems the good old days of Ryanair trying to screw up its passengers as much as possible are back once again.

Ryanair’s decided to reduce its free-of-charge check-in time from seven days to only four days.

Customers are angry that they can now no longer check in outbound and inbound flights at the same time for week-long excursions.

The new measure, which comes in to effect on November 1, means that travellers may have to search around for internet connections and printers while abroad to download or print their boarding pass. Ryanair charges £45 for anyone who turns up to the airport for a flight without one printed out or a pass downloaded to their phone.

Many feel that the airline is herding them towards paying for a reservation.

Passengers pay between £4 and £15 to pay for a seat of their choice up to 30 days in advance.

This new measure obviously sparked a wave of negative comments from Ryanair customers. In response to the backlash, Ryanair’s chief marketing officer Kenny Jacobs told MailOnline Travel: ‘We’re continuing to listen to our customers through our “Always Getting Better” programme and this change reflects the customer feedback we have received.

‘From 1st November, we’re offering those customers who wish to reserve seats more time to choose their preferred seat, by reducing the check-in window from seven to four days pre-departure for those customers who prefer a random seat.

‘Customers who do not wish to reserve their seat will be able to check-in between four days and two hours ahead of their departure, using both the Ryanair.com website and Ryanair mobile app, and will continue to be randomly allocated a seat, free of charge.’

The new check-times applies to both new and existing bookings for flights taken after November 1.

Although other airlines have smaller check-in windows – British Airways’ is 24 hours and Aer Lingus 30 hours – customers are rarely charged to check-in at the airport and they are also able reserve a desired seat free-of-charge.

The move comes as Ryanair warned this week that its profits for this year will take a hit, blaming the impact of the plunging pound.

The Irish carrier blamed an 18 per cent fall in the value of sterling since the Brexit vote as it cut its annual earnings forecast by five per cent.

The airline now anticipates full-year earnings of between €1.30billion (£1.17billion) and €1.35billion, down from the previous range of €1.38billion to €1.43billion.

Rival EasyJet revealed a £90million impact from the falling pound earlier this month, on top of at least £125million in lost profit after a combination of terror attacks across Europe, Egypt and Tunisia, as well as air traffic control strikes in France and political turmoil in Turkey.

Ryanair and EasyJet have also been slashing fares to boost demand.

We recommend all passengers with smartphones to download Ryanair app and do the check-in through this application. You don’t have to print the boarding pass if you do the check-in this way. Unfortunately couple of airports in Europe still don’t accept this form of mobile boarding card and require you to print the ticket anyway.

Let’s hope Ryanair reconsiders this new measure apparently aimed at generating an extra revenue and revert back to the previous 7 day check-in window.