An elderly couple who printed the wrong boarding passes for a Ryanair flight have said they were “horrified” after being hit by the airline’s £110 fee.
Ruth and Peter Jaffe, from Ealing, west London, had mistakenly printed their return boarding passes instead of the ones for their outbound flight to Bergerac, France.
This meant they were charged for having their tickets printed at Stansted Airport, Essex, on Friday.
Ryanair has insisted the couple “failed to check in online” and were “correctly charged”.
Mrs Jaffe, 79, told the BBC the airline’s website was “very confusing” and she believed she had printed the correct tickets.
She said: “We arrived at Stansted two hours before the flight and found I had not got the outward boarding card. I’d only got the return one.
“I was then told we’d have to go to the Ryanair desk to get a boarding card and there they charged me £55 per person. (I was) horrified.”
Mr Jaffe, 80, said the couple felt they “didn’t have much choice” but to pay the fee as people were “expecting us at the other end”.
He added Ryanair’s strategy “seems to be screw whatever you can out of the passengers”.
News of the charge first emerged when Mr and Mrs Jaffe’s daughter posted an angry message to Ryanair on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Under the username @old_school_alps, the woman said: “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.
“£110 for 2 pieces of paper which took 1 minute. Shame on you.”
Ryanair said in a statement that all passengers travelling with the airline agree to check in online before arriving at their departure airport.
It added: “All passengers are sent an email/SMS, reminding them to do so 24hrs before departure.
“We regret that these passengers ignored their email reminder and failed to check in online.”
