{"id":596276,"date":"2026-07-21T05:50:29","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T05:50:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/596276\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T05:50:29","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T05:50:29","slug":"ryanair-denies-its-booking-system-changes-names-this-video-suggests-otherwise-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/596276\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryanair denies its booking system changes names. This video suggests otherwise \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is there possibly a glitch in the Ryanair<\/a> booking system that can see names of would-be passengers changed to entirely different names as they move through the process? <\/p>\n

Readers say there is. Ryanair says absolutely no way and dismisses the very idea as a \u201cspurious\u201d invention of either Pricewatch<\/a> or our readers \u2013 we\u2019re not entirely sure which. <\/p>\n

And while video evidence that was shared with Pricewatch by one reader definitely suggests something odd happened during the booking process and did prompt the airline to soften its stance a little, it held firm on a second almost identical story. <\/p>\n

Please make sure your seat belt is fastened and your tray is in the upright position as we are ready for take-off. <\/p>\n

Late in June a reader called John mailed us. He was less than pleased to be charged a \u20ac115 name-change fee by Ryanair \u201cdespite the issue appearing to have been caused by the booking process itself rather than by any error on my part\u201d. <\/p>\n

In his mail John says he \u201cattempted to resolve it through Ryanair\u2019s online customer service chat [but] despite explaining the circumstances, Ryanair declined to acknowledge that there may have been a fault within its system and advised that any correction to the booking would require payment of the standard \u20ac115 name-change fee.\u201d<\/p>\n

So what are we talking about here?<\/p>\n

Well, John insists that while he was in the process of booking a flight to Faro on the Ryanair App, he entered the name of his daughter Mary (we\u2019ve changed her name) as the passenger and \u201cselected the option to save her details to my Ryanair account\u201d. He then \u201cproceeded to complete and pay for the booking\u201d.<\/p>\n

But when he got the booking confirmation email from the airline, he noticed that the passenger name had been changed to Eileen, his wife\u2019s name (we have not changed her name for reasons that will become clear).<\/p>\n

\"ReadersReaders say names they entered during the Ryanair booking process were changed <\/p>\n

\u201cI contacted Ryanair\u2019s online chat support. The agent was also unable to explain the issue and suggested that I repeat the booking process (without completing payment) to see whether the problem could be reproduced. When I repeated the process, the same issue occurred. Although Mary was clearly entered as the passenger, the system automatically defaulted to Eileen.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says this is not seen on the screen during the booking process and the system \u201cdefaults to Eileen only when you proceed beyond the passenger screen\u201d.<\/p>\n

We sent details of this story to Ryanair and it completely rejected John\u2019s story. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Ryanair system does not \u2018input names\u2019,\u201d a spokeswoman said. <\/p>\n

She added that \u201ceach passenger must select the names from their \u2018MyRyanair account\u2019 when making a booking. When a passenger selects a name from their account, they must then confirm the name and these details prior to making payment. The system does not \u201cchange\u201d or \u201cmake errors\u201d in relation to passenger names. These can only be selected by the person making the booking and payment. In this case [John] booked the wrong name and as this is not a \u2018minor\u2019 name change (we allow free of charge changes for up to 3 characters in a name), it is a change of passenger. He was properly quoted the name change fee if he wishes to change this booking from passenger Eileen to passenger Mary. This factual position has already been communicated to [him].\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ryanair passenger partly sucked out of plane as window dislodgesOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Now, that might well have been that. In fact it would have been that but for a strange coincidence. <\/p>\n

By chance, just days later and before we had shared John\u2019s story with anyone but the Ryanair press office, we heard from another reader by the name of Seamus Tubridy and he had a story that was uncannily similar to John\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have an interesting issue with a Ryanair booking over the weekend and needless to say it a total and utter waste of time trying to contact them to get it resolved,\u201d his mail begins. <\/p>\n

\u201cBasically I booked a flight to Edinburgh from Shannon for next Saturday. I went through the booking process like I have done several times before. I selected my name that is stored on my app and went through to payment.\u201d<\/p>\n

He got his confirmation and \u2013 you\u2019ll never guess what? <\/p>\n

The name on the booking changed to Eileen. <\/p>\n

That, weirdly, is also the name that was on John\u2019s booking for his daughter Mary. <\/p>\n

Utterly bamboozled, we went back to Seamus to see if he had any family members called Eileen and indeed he does. Eileen is his mother\u2019s name and while he says that it is possible he might have booked a flight for her years ago, he insists she is not on his system.<\/p>\n

So, two people had virtually identical experiences using the Ryanair booking system within a very short space of time and Ryanair was insisting that the first reader must have forgotten his daughter\u2019s name and typed in his wife\u2019s instead, while the second was being told he must have forgotten is own name and typed in his mother\u2019s name instead. <\/p>\n

After hearing from Seamus we were getting ready \u2013 with a heavy heart \u2013 to go back to the Ryanair press office, fully expecting more denials when we realised Semaus had attached a video to his mail. <\/p>\n

And what did that video show?<\/p>\n

Well, Seamus says that he \u201cwent back and did a mock run, recording the process on my wife\u2019s phone [and] the same thing happened again\u201d.<\/p>\n

He writes that he \u201cmanaged to get a Ryanair agent on webtext yesterday and he just kept telling me it is \u20ac115 to change the name. I asked him for an email to send the video but he couldn\u2019t provide one. <\/p>\n

\u201cI even went to Shannon airport yesterday evening and showed it to the Ryanair staff, I showed them the video but they couldn\u2019t help. They said to show up on Saturday for the flight and show it to the staff then,\u201d he writes. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt really isn\u2019t good enough and really too risky to try and take a chance for next Saturday. Is there any way you could help and more importantly highlight the problem because this could be a glitch on the app that could affect a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, what can we say? We can only try. We sent Seamus\u2019s story to Ryanair and attached the video which \u2013 to our eyes \u2013 appeared to show him entering the name Seamus and moving through the process only for the name Eileen to appear (as if by magic) as the process concludes.<\/p>\n

Before we tell you what the airline had to say about that we will revisit what they told us when we shared John\u2019s experience with the press office. \u201cWhen a passenger selects a name from their account, they must then confirm the name and these details prior to making payment. The system does not \u201cchange\u201d or \u201cmake errors\u201d in relation to passenger names. These can only be selected by the person making the booking and payment.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is Ryanair\u2019s statement about Seamus\u2019s experience in full. <\/p>\n

\u201cThanks for your email which enclosed a video of a customer booking App sequence which appears to show names on the Ryanair account being changed during the booking flow. We have shared this video with the Mobile App Team within Ryanair Labs. They have been unable to replicate the sequence indicated in the video within the mobile App. The advice of our Labs Team is that there are frequent releases and updates to both Android and IOS and Mr Tubridy should ensure he has downloaded the most up to date version of the Ryanair App and his phone has the most up to date version of IOS. Our Labs Team are confident that this will resolve the issue. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ryanair: \u2018We don\u2019t have time to waste with stupid follow-up questions from your readers\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Mr Tubridy confirmed and paid for the booking in the name of \u2018Eileen\u2019 rather than \u2018Seamus\u2019 as demonstrated on the video, then he is required to pay the name change fee. However, we will make this change for him in this case at no cost as we cannot replicate his video sequence.\u201d<\/p>\n

We then got back on to them to see if, in light of what we consider to be new video evidence that shows how names can be changed not by the passenger but by the system, the airline would reconsider its statement sent in relation to John.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, we wouldn\u2019t,\u201d was the decidedly terse response.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Is there possibly a glitch in the Ryanair booking system that can see names of would-be passengers changed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":596277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,2190,18,19,17,6641,623],"class_list":["post-596276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-cost-of-living","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-pricewatch","tag-ryanair"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116956406360541069","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}