Ryanair new free seat policy ?

oh my thats terribly inconvenient.

I didnt know about that. Thanks for the heads up, as i have a flight for christmas in a few days to come back home.

What a dreadful requirement, so much hassle for no reason whats so ever. More work for everyone involved, for as you said, just to encourage people to pick a seat. I cant believe they are allowed to advertise ticket prices without that included if you have to go through that hoop. Hopefully they are forced to display it with the price instead of pretending to be so low cost.

Is this just the downloading of pdf to print? I used the app over the weekend coming home today and all was fine.

You know too that they’ll have the particular desks staffed very minimally and have you Qing for ages.

airports and air travel is enough of a ball ache these days without these maneuvers...

i think it might encourage people to use the competion.

Flew twice this week, no change to the usual way it works in the app for me. Flying again Friday, will find out soon enough if so.

Makes me wonder did they try checking in less than 2 hours before the flight..?

I'm going to guess that's a covid regulation - I've had to do that with two different airlines over the last few months (one of which had blocked online checkin altogether so that the check-in staff could check covid vaccination and antigen test visually on the phone).

Not sure - I'm only guessing here. Possibly as an option to sell it you, whereas less people are likely to pay at the checkin desk? Ir is Ryanair...

Where are you flying from/to? Might be destination/origin related.

Still guessing it's covid:

https://www.ryanair.com/ie/en/useful-info/Coronavirus-covid-19

Will I be required to complete & present additional documentation at the airport before I can fly?

As a result of Covid-19 its entirely likely that you will be required to complete and present additional travel documentation before you trip. Please ensure you check the most up to date travel restrictions and country-specific requirements before you fly. Failure to present any mandatory documentation will result in your travel being denied by local authorities. Please don’t take any risks and make sure you have the required covid test and passenger locator form completed before you fly.

For tracing purposes it might be that they know who was sitting where.

Oh I thought it was still stroll on and sit down wherever once people that had paid had got their seats. It’s been a while since I flew with them.

I wonder were you a test case for a new system they plan on rolling out, makes sense its so Ryanair dont buy a seat be inconvenienced

The only time i have seen this before was when the flight was oversold. But Ryanair say they do not oversell their flights so that cant be it.

OP are you an Irish/British/Other EU passport holder?

I know there are issues with American and Australian travellers not being able to use a downloaded and printed off boarding pass but that's to do with Visa regulations. An intergovernmental issue rather than a spefically Ryanair one.