People flying with Ryanair out of Liverpool John Lennon see major change from this week as the airline scraps printed boarding passes. Tony McDonough reports

Low cost airline Ryanair will now only accept digital boarding passes after scrapping paper passes from Wednesday (November 12).

Ryanair, which operates more than 30 routes out of Liverpool John Lennon Airport (LJLA), said the initial roll-out of the policy on Wednesday morning had caused no major issues.

By 1pm more than 700 flights had departed across Europe with more than 98% of passengers successfully producing their digital boarding passes. Even prior to the new policy the carrier said 90% of passengers had already gone digital.

The other 2%, all of whom had checked in online before arriving at the airport, were issued free of charge boarding passes at airport ticket desks.

According to Ryanair, customer feedback was “universally positive” as passengers swiped their phones through airport security and boarding gates.

No passengers were offloaded, and where one or two passengers had a problem with their phone, they were boarded without difficulty as the boarding gates had their details from their online check-in.

Ryanair’s chief marketing officer, Dara Brady, said: “So far, day one of Ryanair’s DBP has been a huge success as over 700 flights and more than 100,000 passengers enjoyed the improved service and better experience of paper-free boarding at Ryanair airports.

“We estimate our initiative will save up to €40m annually, and this will help us to lower ticket prices and make air travel more competitive for Ryanair’s customers.”

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Those who fail to check in online ahead of their Ryanair flight will have to pay an airport check-in fee of up to £55.

However, people who have checked in online but cannot access their boarding pass on their smartphone will be able to receive it for free at the airport. Previously there was a £20 charge.