Ryan Air VIsa Checks at Stanstead

If you are not a citizen of a country in the European Union you must get your passport checked by Ryanair before passing through security and on to your gate. Sometimes there is an agent helping out in the check-in area and they can do it for you and sometimes you have to go to a designated check-in counter. We always tried to avoid those long check-in lines and would go up to the Ryanair agent helping to direct folks when possible. He/she can either do it for you or direct you to the appropriate counter. The agent will then sign off on your boaring pass after making sure your passport info is acceptable. Then you can go down to security and to your gate. We used to live in the UK and travelled frecuently on Ryanair to lots of different destinations in Europe and we always had to follow this procedure no matter what city we were departing from and allow extra time to get it done. I believe it is mentioned somewhere on the website during the ticketing process.

Andy Steves (Rick's son) has a new book about weekends in various European cities. In his section on budget flights in Europe, he specifically warns that this "visa check" process exists for all Ryanair flights as a separate step, and to allow time for this. So, it's not new, or specific to your flight or airport.

As I've never flown Ryanair, I can't comment further.

We had to do it in Barcelona. It's key to know that we didn't do it at the check in line - that's the wrong line. at least at Barcelona. You need to go over to the ticket purchase line - which we finally did - and there, taped into the window was a little sign that said "document check". They checked our passports and made a little note on our boarding pass and we were good to go.

I had read the fine print and was aware of this document check and we STILL had a hard time figuring out where to go.

We did this the past week in Treviso. This instruction was clearly marked on the boarding passes we had previously printed. I can't recall, but I believe it was shown in the instructions during online check-in before we printed.

Our boarding passes & all the information we received did not include anything about the Visa check. My husband even doubted me & went over everything very carefully without success. Wonder why?

It's here on their website: https://www.ryanair.com/us/en/useful-info/help-centre/faq-overview/passports-and-visas/im-a-non-eu-eea-passenger-do-I-need-extra-travel-document-visa-check.

I was made aware of it somehow during the ticket purchase - but I really like to read fine print:)

Different airline & different problem, but we were sent on a similar wild goose chase in Dublin airport for Aer Lingus flight to Glasgow, which we'd booked through a 3rd party (Travelocity or Expedia or something) without realizing it. We'd downloaded our boarding passes on the iPhone, but we needed a similar human check and kept being sent to different lines.

Luckily our baggage was fairly light, and luckily we'd allowed plenty of time to go through security.