Woman slams airline after charging elderly parents £110 to print off boarding passes

An elderly couple's holiday got off to the worst possible start when they were charged £110 as soon as they got to the airport.

Ruth Jaffe and husband Peter headed to Stansted last Friday (11 August) ahead of their trip to Bergerac in France.

Like most people do these days, they checked in online, with Ruth paying £22 to sit next to Peter, a retired paediatrician, who is disabled.

However, when they got to the desk, they discovered that rather than checking in for the outgoing trip, they'd actually sorted their return flight.

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And rather than understanding the mistake and giving the couple the benefit of the doubt, the airline charged them £55 each to print off the correct passes. Ouch.

Ruth, a retired GP from Ealing, London, said she was 'disgusted' by the charge.

"The website was very confusing, they're trying to get you to add on this and that," she said.

"I didn't realise I was checking in for the coming home flight. 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.

"They said that's £55 per person. I thought it was absolutely disgusting but I had no option so paid up.

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"It was very stressful.

"The nice girl at the desk told me to complain to Ryanair. I could afford to pay it but it made me furious. We're lucky we can afford it but for a family it would be absolutely disastrous."

After hearing of her parents' mistake, their daughter took to X to call out Ryanair for charging the elderly couple.

"I'd like to be given back my money please," said Ruth.

"Having bought the tickets in advance, I'm very p*ssed off about it."

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But despite the overwhelming support online for the couple, Ryanair said rules are rules.

Under their guidelines, passengers must be checked in online before departing, if they turn up to the airport without a boarding pass, they'll be charged.

A spokesperson for the airline said: "As per Ryanair's T&C's, which these passengers agreed to at the time of booking, these passengers 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) and therefore were correctly charged the airport check-in fee of £55 per passenger."

Topics: UK News, Ryanair, Travel

Dominic Smithers

Dominic Smithers is the News/Agenda Desk Lead, covering the latest trends and breaking stories. After graduating from the University of Leeds with a degree in French and History, he went on to write for the Manchester Evening News, the Accrington Observer and the Macclesfield Express. So as you can imagine, he’s spent many a night wondering just how useful that second language has been. But c'est la vie.

@SmithersDom