A family from Northern Ireland has alleged that they were denied boarding on a Ryanair flight from London after being wrongly told they needed a visa to enter Ireland from the UK. Christina Finn and her husband Cameron had flown to London from Belfast for a CBeebies event with their five-month-old son, and were returning from Stansted to Dublin when they were turned away by the budget airline.
Speaking to Belfast Live, Christina said their problems began when they couldn’t check in online for their flight. “We had flown to London on Friday morning from Belfast for a meeting with the BBC, and we were to fly home from London to Dublin and then get the bus up to Belfast as that was the cheapest option, and it is something we would do all the time,”she said. she explained.
Travelling with their five-month-old baby, who is quite unwell and needs medication twice a day, it was crucial for them to get home early. “When we went to check in on the app, it wouldn’t let me click through to our booking at all and I thought the issue was with my phone so when we got to the airport, we had to check in at the desk where we then had to pay a fine for not checking in online.”
After paying the fine, Christina said the Ryanair staff asked to see their passports.
She informed them that they had travelled to London with easyJet using their driving licences but that they also had their passports, which had recently expired, reports Belfast Live.
A pregnant British woman was left in utter dismay when she was denied boarding on her flight back home due to passport confusion at the airport. Recounting the stressful ordeal, she said, “My husband has an Irish passport and I have a British one which have both recently expired. With the baby due, we were waiting until he was born to renew them so that we could just do it at the same time. We informed the staff that we had flown over on our driving licences so he took them away and came back with a man who told us that because my husband has an expired Irish passport, he would be allowed on the flight to Dublin but as my passport was a British one they couldn’t let me on the plane.”
The situation became more perplexing when the staff insisted on visa requirements. She continued, “The staff informed me that as a UK citizen I would need a visa to travel to Ireland as it is in the EU and I tried to explain to them that that wouldn’t apply due to the Common Travel Area. I told him that we lived in Northern Ireland and he then questioned how I had a British passport and couldn’t seem to understand that it was a pretty common thing for people to fly to Dublin then travel on to Belfast. He also said that we would need to have evidence that we had booked onward travel from Dublin to Belfast.”
The situation escalated when the airline staff claimed there would be penalties if they proceeded. “As I questioned it, he said that he was speaking to someone on the phone who told him that if they let us on the plane and if we arrived in Dublin we would be stopped at passport control and the airline would be fined between £500 and £1000 for allowing me on the plane without a valid passport.”
In the end, the couple was presented with a costly solution. Christina said that the staff member informed them that the only way around their issue would be for them to book a new flight directly to Belfast which would cost them £490.
Christina’s holiday woes began when she and her family were left out of pocket by Ryanair’s stringent check-in policies.
Narrating the chaotic turn of events, she recounted: “We had to borrow the money from my mum for the flights and while I was on the phone to her she looked up the Government website which stated that you did not need a passport or visa to travel between the UK and Ireland. She sent me a screenshot of this which I showed to the man and he said he would look into it then he walked away.”
Feeling confused and seeking clarity, Christina took proactive steps: “I decided to ring the British embassy in Dublin who directed me to call the Irish embassy in London and the woman on the phone was horrified. She said that there was no requirement for people to have a passport for travelling between the UK and Ireland and that there was also no need for a visa.”
However, the situation wasn’t as straightforward as international regulations suggest: “However, she explained that Ryanair could have its own policy requiring travellers to have a passport.”
These hurdles left Christina feeling marginalised: she said that the whole experience made her feel like a “second-class citizen”.
Ryanair defended their actions in a statement, where a spokesperson clarified: “In accordance with Ryanair’s TandC’s, which these passengers agreed to at the time of booking, these passengers failed to check-in online before arriving at London Stansted Airport (5 June). Therefore, these passengers were correctly asked to pay the required airport check-in fee (£55 per passenger), however refused to do so, and became aggressive towards the agents at the check in desk at London Stansted Airport.”
The spokesperson reiterated the importance of following the airline’s procedures: “All passengers travelling with Ryanair agree to check-in online before arriving at their departure airport and all passengers are sent an email reminding them to do so 24hrs before departure.
“These passengers were subsequently correctly denied boarding to this flight from London Stansted to Dublin (5 June) as these passengers’ passports did not meet the requirements for travel as both passports had expired in 2024.
“It is each passenger’s responsibility to ensure that their passport is valid for travel in line with the relevant State requirements at the time of travel. These requirements are clearly set out on Ryanair.com, and passengers are reminded with pop-up messages during booking. Passengers travelling between Ireland and the UK are required to carry a valid passport for travel. Therefore, as these passengers did not present a valid passport for this flight from London Stansted to Dublin Airport, they were correctly denied boarding.”