An elderly couple flying on Ryanair says the airline charged them $140 just to print their boarding passes

15.08.2023 - 03:51 / insider.com

An elderly couple has accused European low-cost carrier Ryanair of charging them 110 pounds, or $140, just to print out the boarding passes for their outbound flight. 

Peter and Ruth Jaffe, who are 80 and 79 years old respectively, told The Telegraph in a story published Monday that they were forced to pay the sum after realizing they had checked in for their return flight by mistake. The couple was flying from London's Stansted Airport to Bergerac, France, on Friday. 

"The website was very confusing, they're trying to get you to add on this and that. I didn't realize I was checking in for the coming home flight," Ruth Jaffe told The Telegraph. 

With no boarding passes for their flight, the couple had no choice but to check in at the airport itself.  

"At the airport, I tried to get the boarding card, and it said 'check-in is closed' and I needed to go to the desk," Ruth Jaffe continued. "They said that's £55 per person. I thought it was absolutely disgusting, but I had no option so paid up. It was very stressful."

A spokesperson for Ryanair told The Telegraph that the couple was "correctly charged the airport check-in fee of £55 per passenger" based on the airline's terms and conditions.

The spokesperson said the couple had "failed to check-in online for their outbound flight from Stansted Airport (11 Aug) despite being advised to do so via email the day before travel (10 Aug)." 

The Jaffes' daughter posted about the incident on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, on Sunday. The post has since been viewed 13 million times. 

"Hey @Ryanair, my parents who are in their 70s and 80s, had accidentally downloaded the return flight boarding card instead of the outgoing ones and you charged them £110 to print them at the airport," the Jaffes' daughter tweeted. "£110 for 2 pieces of paper which took 1 minute. Shame on you."

Ryanair's customer service later reached out to the Jaffe's daughter on Monday. 

The daughter tweeted a reply to Ryanair's customer service account, saying she had filed a complaint via Ryanair's online form. She also clarified that her mother checked on the wrong flight as she wanted to pay extra to be seated together with her father. 

"My mum made a mistake while trying to check in. You told her she wouldn't sit next to her disabled husband if she didn't pay extra so she tried," she wrote. "It then checked her in for the return flight only. They sat separately after paying £110."

Other passengers shared similar experiences in their replies to the daughter's original tweet.

"I missed printing all the stuff on paper when flying with Ryanair for the first and last time. Their business idea appears to be charging people for printing stuff you already paid for," a person wrote on