No Smartphone, No Flight: Ryanair Is Banning Paper Boarding Passes This November

If you consider yourself a travel traditionalist who loves to print out your boarding pass and other important documents, then you might want to consider flying another airline other than Ryanair.

From November 12, 2025, the low-cost airline is consigning paper boarding passes to the history books.

Ryanair will switch off the ability to print a boarding pass, and passengers will have to use the Ryanair mobile app to download a digital boarding pass.

At present, around 80% of passengers are already downloading their boarding pass via the Ryanair mobile app, but the airline is determined to make everyone ditch paper boarding passes.

Initially, Ryanair planned to make the switch to digital boarding passes on November 3, but reevaluated its plans after realizing that date was in the middle of mid-term breaks for schools.

In other words, Ryanair feared potential travel carnage at boarding gates, so it moved the transition date a week later, when fewer people are traveling and any problems can be handled more easily.

Ryanair’s chief commercial officer, Dara Brady, said the switch would mean a “faster, smarter, and greener travel experience” for customers. An additional benefit not mentioned by Brady is that Ryanair will get its mobile app installed on every one of its passengers ‘ smartphones.

The obvious question, though, is what do you do if you don’t own a smartphone?

Admittedly, this is less of an issue than ever before, but elderly or vulnerable passengers might not own a smartphone, and even if they do, they might not be proficient in using the app to download a digital boarding.

Some of those 20% of passengers who are still printing out paper boarding passes at home are likely being helped by friends and family who won’t be with them at the airport to help them with Ryanair’s app.

Unfortunately, Ryanair did not offer any advice for these passengers in its press release, and the airline’s website doesn’t appear to have been updated with information about the switchover and what this might mean for passengers with additional needs.

Ryanair, however, explains that this is no different from companies selling tickets for music festivals, concerts, and sporting events, who have largely transitioned to digital-only tickets in the last few years.

There’s also another small issue stopping Ryanair from actually achieving a 100% take-up rate for digital boarding passes – some airports only accept paper boarding passes.

Passengers traveling from Morocco or Turkey, with the exception of Dalaman Airport, must all use paper boarding passes, as well as passengers traveling between Tirana, Albania, to London.