Ryanair to close bag drop earlier in effort to give passengers time to clear security

Ryanair has reminded passengers who like to cut it fine by checking in bags less than an hour before take-off that they risk missing their flights from next week unless they show up earlier.

Under the airline’s current rules, bag drop services close 40 minutes before a flight’s scheduled departure time.

That means would-be travellers have a very small window to make it through security and to boarding gates in a timely fashion.

From Tuesday, November 10th, however, Ryanair is making the window slightly bigger, and all bags that are being checked in will have to be dropped no later than one hour before departure time.

The change was announced in April, and Ryanair said it would give the “20 per cent of Ryanair passengers who check in a bag more time to clear airport security and passport control queues and reach their departure gate before boarding begins, particularly during busy travel periods”.

The airline added that the change would “also help reduce the small number of passengers who miss their flights due to delays at airport security or passport control”.

It stressed that passengers who do not check in bags will be entirely unaffected by the change and will continue to check in online before travelling to the airport and going straight through security to their departure gate.

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The move is the latest streamlining of Ryanair’s processes.

This time last year, the airline scrapped paper boarding passes for the vast majority of its destinations, and everyone travelling with the airline is now expected to use a digital pass that is sent to the Ryanair app on their smartphone.

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At the time of that shift, Ryanair said that moving to digital-only boarding passes would lower “airport costs and fares for all Ryanair passengers”. It also said it would offer “a better service (including flight info) for customers on the day of travel [and it] improves customer service and rebooking during flight disruptions”.