The court heard that Ryanair was strictly obliged under EU regulations to close its check-in 40 minutes prior to scheduled departure. Jonathan Murphy told Judge Deirdre Browne in the Circuit Civil Court that he had turned up “only two minutes late” at the airline’s check-in at Brussels Airport, on November 20th 2024, to find the desk had already closed. In his appeal to the Circuit Court, Mr Murphy claimed Ryanair had wrongly failed to facilitate him at the Brussels airport. This strict EU regulation was in place to facilitate the generation of the passenger manifest, passenger baggage reconciliation, fuel and other checks by the flight crew. As a result of this he had to pay a manual check-in fee at an office in Brussels airport at least two minutes’ walk from the check-in desk.

Source: The Irish Times January 16, 2026 19:41 UTC