What Does Ryanair Know That Other Airlines Don’t?

Some passengers checking in for flights on Irish ultra-low-cost carrier Ryanair have access to a state-of-the-art identification system to validate their identity to the airline. It’s still a work in progress but the underlying tech, sourced from Checkin.com’s GetID unit,  may serve as a harbinger of the type of technology travelers will encounter in a variety of circumstances.

In 2008, Ryanair became the first airline to ask passengers to check in online before arriving at the airport. The airline’s goal was to cut costs by dramatically reducing the number of travelers who had to interact with a check-in agent. Ryanair would employ fewer agents and pay less for space in the departures check-in area.

Ryanair has for years chastised online travel agencies for screen scraping the carrier’s fares and then charging higher prices, adding booking fees, and charging more for so-called nuisance fees such as checked-bag fees than the airline did.

Some passengers who do book their flights through an online travel agent, or OTA, are then required to go through a series of verification checks before being allowed to check in.

A Ryanair 737 in flight

This is where Checkin.com comes in. In 2021, the company acquired Estonian identity firm GetID for $9.5 million and quickly followed up with a second Estonian acquisition, Datacorp, which develops AI-based image analysis technology  based on neural network algorithms and computer vision used against a vector database, this for  €4.15 million ($4.7 million at the time of the transaction).

When a traveler books a ticket via an OTA, he will sometimes see a message advising that “[Y]our booking is blocked because it looks like it was booked through an online travel agent who has no commercial relationship with us to sell our flights.”

Ryanair does explain to customers why they need to carry out the extra verification step, to wit: “Online travel agents often do not provide us with your correct email address and payment details, so we need to verify your identity. We also need to carry out this process in order to ensure we can comply with safety and security requirements.”

Not everything has been smooth sailing, however.

The European Center for Digital Rights, a Vienna-based group that is often referred to as noyb, or “none of your business,” filed a lawsuit last July accusing Ryanair of violating the privacy rights of some of its customers. The suit alleges violations of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, commonly referred to as GDPR, due to the carrier’s data collection and privacy issues.  The group is asking for $210 million in compensation.

“The airline outsources this process to an external company named GetID,” noyb said, in a statement. “This means that customers have to entrust their biometric data to a company they have never heard of or had a contract with.”

A passenger check-in area at Dublin Airport

In September 2023, in another case, a Spanish court found in favor of Ryanair, ruling against online travel agency Kiwi. The court allowed the airline to retain its use of GetID technology for passengers who book through OTAs. The suit filed by noyb remains open, however, at press time.

Meanwhile, passengers themselves don’t appear to object to using prescreening tech to save time at the airport.

A recent survey conducted by Researchscape International on behalf of Checkin.com found that time is money, at least when waiting in line at an airport is concerned.  Three out of four travelers surveyed said they would pay for the convenience of using an app to review and accept their travel documents prior to arriving at the airport, thus allowing those who opted for the pre-scan to go directly to the gate, 76% of respondents said they would pay a fee while fewer than a quarter, 24%, said they were not willing to pay fee for the privilege of not waiting.

Visa verification and traveler eligibility to enter a country are two areas that are more laborious at airports and airline personnel, looking up information in Timatic, a database containing documentation requirements for passengers traveling internationally via air, e.g., passport and visa requirements, make the occasional error, incorrectly denying boarding to passengers who are eligible to travel to the destination for which their ticket was issued.  Tools such as those from Checkin.com could greatly reduce the possibility of mistakes in the process, which would be a win for both travelers and airlines.

Airline and hotel check-ins may actually just be the low-hanging fruit here.

Checkin.com co-founder Alexey Kuznetsov believes that, as the world slowly gravitates to a more online place – a phenomenon kickstarted by the pandemic – both governments and entities bound by industry regulations such as banks will want to take substantially greater steps than they do now to confirm who is who and who is on the other end of the connection.

Entities whose customers aren’t even flying the friendly skies have found use for AI-based facial recognition. At TIAA Bank Field in Jacksonville, Florida, a Checkin.com competitor, Trueface, is checking IDs and accepting payments at an automated bar called the TendedBar.  The ten-foot long unit can serve 14 drinks per minute, according to the report, serving a line of 35 customers in just five minutes.

Jonathan Spira contributed reporting to this story.

(Photo: Accura Media Group)