Ryanair dark UX patterns summer 2026 refresher

That “Don’t Insure Me” option hidden in the middle of a country list is pure evil. I’m used to seeing dark patterns everywhere but that’s a first for me.

From where I stand, it’s not fair to charge the hell out of people who fall for these tricks while giving steep discounts to the ones who don’t. Maybe there’s a “fool me once” aspect to Ryanair’s shenanigans, so at least their impact might be limited somehow.

About 1/3 of their revenue is ancillary (the dark patterns are there to cause ancillary revenue).

I just flew from Bournemouth to Alicante on Ryanair for £50. A similar flight in the US (DC to Miami, for example) would be easily 5x that, possibly 7-8x. The dark patterns took me about 10min to click through. Doing the math, that means my time would have to be worth $1500/hr which is higher than the take-home (not billable) of senior partners at law firms.

Ryanair has severely improved my life, especially for my fellow sun-deprived Northern Europeans.

[1] https://investor.ryanair.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Ryan...

And a last, most sneaky one: At checkout if you pay with credit/debit card don't use Ryanair's "guaranteed exhange rate" if the cost of the flight is not in your card's currency (ticket by default, at least two clicks to find and untick it). That's ~6% gap from mid-market exhange rate, the worst cards do better than that.

Oh, don't get me started on Ryanair, but alas.

You go through what seems the entire check-in process, you get what seems like a summary at the end, with a link to a UK government site where you need to go next to get a travel authorization, I spend an hour doing that, finally finish that, I show up to the airport the next morning to be told I'm not checked in, having to pay a hefty fee to do a late check-in for each of my five passengers. The staff at the airport isn't really Ryanair's, so recourse there. (As if having real Ryanair staff would have made a difference.)

Same trip, coming back, we wait in the central terminal building until our gate is published. We go over to the gate, one of our passengers being in a wheelchair, needing an elevator, which are out of service. Friendly airport staff help us with the long detour to get to our gate. By now the doors are closed, we missed our flight. Again, having to pay a hefty fee to rebook for each of my five passengers. This is Ryanair staff, still no recourse. (But plenty of contempt.)

I admit defeat, but my wife is still motivated to talk to customer support. This is months ago, I don't think that went anywhere either. They're mostly impenetrable.

I don't mind their baggage policies, it's a known thing that there's upsales every step of the way, that's baked in by now (pretty much across the industry). But there's still plenty deep-dark patterns left.

Thank goodness that we can vote with our feet, right, and just don't buy from them anymore. But guess what, we booked another flight for next month :)

They managed to create a business model relying in some sort of "slot machine" where customers buy the ticket to discover later they are "stupid" not noticing some rule hidden in the meticulously engineered dark patterns and, to board now and do not miss the planned trip, they will have to pay an expensive fee.

It is still impressive for me they managing to be this good in being nefarious at same time they have to worry about executing the service in such a complex industry.

The cherry on top is their social media, successfully bringing humour to alleviate and to make all of this acceptable, as it was just part of a bigger joke.

I consider myself kind of sensitive to being forced to do stuff, but Ryanair just doesn't seem that bad. Of course, you get a million offers for things you probably don't need, but I genuinely don't feel like they're trying to scam me. It's like ad-supported Spotify or something. Annoying, but not actively trying to vacuum up my credit card.

About ten years ago, Ryanaiar suffered a booking system malfunction. My ticket was wrongly booked to "John Smith" and apparently sent to an email address "joxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx" due to a flaw in their booking system. I noticed when trying to check in online far in advance.

After many hours spent fruitlessly fighting the Ryanair customer disservice desk, I decided to enlist the help of my local ECC [0]. I paid Ryanair a 120€ name change fee and had the ECC claim it back for me.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Consumer_Centres_Netw...

Ryanair isn't that bad hence their ascent from a small airline to Europe's largest. The flights are usually cheap, on time and clicking through the junk only takes five minutes. They do occasionally get you with stupid charges. I think the worst I had was being charged £200 or so because I tried checking in online 1hr55m before takeoff and you were supposed to do it 2 hrs ahead. (2 passengers x £100). Swings and roundabouts.

The funny thing about our era is that there is no censorship on corporations, but the state is very active in censoring individuals. Sometimes I feel that legal action is needed against the UX dark patterns of these corporations

If you book Ryanair, and your concentration slips up for a second, you WILL make a mistake and it WILL cost you money and/or inconvenience you. Then you might complain about that, and be met with smarmy, smug, smarter-than-you people who insist that they fly with Ryanair all the time and never pay too much, people who can't read shouldn't be allowed to book flights, etc. etc.

It's worth avoiding Ryanair just to avoid that scenario.

The whole "digital boarding pass" is a lie. My dad don't have a smartphone so you check in at home and at the airport at the desk they print the boarding pass for you if you checked in. Sorted.

I just ordered a pizza from Uber Eats here in Taiwan and was offered the option to "Try Uber One".

Clicking "Try now" in fact just signs you up for Uber One. So I suppose you are, technically, trying it. For money.

Dirty. I'm Australian and I'm sure that wouldn't be legal.

I see EU always regulating all sorts of things, ostensibly to help consumers, but why aren't they doing something about scam airlines like Ryanair?

I want to remind everyone just how bad of a deal travel insurance is.

Yes, there are instances where travel insurance makes sense or may be practically a requirement. Health and/or evacuation insurance for foreign travel and/or cruising may be practically a necessity. You don’t want to be paying tens of thousands of dollars when you need a helicopter to take you off your cruise ship to a hospital.

But if your primary reason for purchasing insurance is insuring yourself against a trip that has to be skipped or modified last minute, you can probably skip it.

The way I insure against these sort of things:

- Buying hotel rooms that are not prepaid and refundable up until the day before check-in

- Paying attention to airline policies. Sure, my United airlines fare isn’t refundable, but if I cancel the flights I get all the money back in flight credits I can use within 6 months.

- Rental cars, same deal as hotels. They’re easy to book with no payment up front.

- Use a good travel credit card with its own trip insurance perks (usually not as comprehensive)

Do I pay more to book flexible like this? Yeah, but I can also keep my money gaining interest until the day of the trip. And the thing about travel insurance is that you still have to deal with the claims process if you need to use it.

The airline so bad there's an entire song about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPyl2tOaKxM

My favorite is how if you buy a “premium” ticket that comes with a checked bag they still try to trick you into paying for a checked bag (again).

When checking in, Ryanair UI makes you click "I don't want a seat" instead of "I don't want TO CHOOSE a seat" when you want to opt out from paying for one.

This should be punishable by law.

When I was a broke student I used a script to observe the RyanAir prices and frequently flew around Europe for extremely cheap (10kg carry-on/backpack). Good times. These dark patterns are a nuisance but easy enough to navigate around.

Is seat selection really a dark pattern? Exit row seats are the most worthwhile add-on to buy when flying IMO, sometimes having even more leg room than business class seats for a fraction of the cost.

Unfortunately some of the airports I care about only have connections mostly with low cost, Ryanair and others.

If regular lines would care to offer similar connections, I would gladly pay a bit more.

I feel like this is only slightly worse than booking on any other airline. Even the supposedly "good" ones like Delta do a lot of these tricks. No reason not to, it's basically free revenue for them.

Ryanair is genuinely a good product. You get what you pay for.

The website reflects their corporate attitude, which i think is okay.

It's amazing; I take maybe five or six Ryanair flights a year, and every single time checkin is worse than the time before.

Unfortunately, they're often the only option from Dublin->wherever with reasonable times; unless I want to go at five in the morning or something I am stuck with them.

I wonder if this makes the world a fairer place actually. Because it allows people that are attentive and have time to dig through this to save money. The lowest price would be higher without these patterns.

It’s a polarizing idea, but frankly it’s what the world moves too and seem to work on the market. Some people are lazy or don’t have time and pay more money and some people have less time and dig through dark patterns, collect coupons or utilize ramp up subsidizing.

All those people that actually "work" through it will have less of a prime as if these patterns wouldn’t exist.

The question still remains would the world be a better place without these patterns,as it wastes time and acts against user intent.

It’s just a fascinating question to me, because a lot of things are not as simple as they seem of the first glance.

No comment about how you must download the app and it is the only way to access your pass? There is not even a QR code or barcode for the pass available any other way?

I refuse to fly Ryanair. Total bastards from end to end. Easyjet are several hundred percent less clowns. Actually anyone else is.

Fascinating Aida: Cheap Flights https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAg0lUYHHFc

    After studying the website we decided it was best
    to pay priority boarding so we'd sit three abreast
    (three abreast, that's the best)
    And of course we'd all have luggage, so that's an extra cost
    And then we paid insurance in case our cases might get lost

If it sounds illegal, it usually is. Tricking people into buying things usually doesn't hold up in court. However, few cases ever make it there and that's what companies like these successfully gamble on.

Another one not mentioned is trying to book a trip for e.g. 3 people, but only one item of hold luggage. You just can't do it, you have to add it later in an amend-booking. Jet2's not quite as bad, its possible but difficult.

The Foil Arms & Hog 12 year old skit [1] is still relevant.

- [1] https://youtu.be/Id-zzOGnN6A (Website part at 1:42 calling out the insurance example).

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I kind of rate Ryanair because while yes they are dodgy at least they’re honest about it and just own it, no fake niceties like you get from American companies.

And I’ve saved thousands of pounds in flights around Europe over the years so can’t really complain

I have never flown with them only because they're the only airline I have come across that forces you to create an account to buy a ticket.

The ryanair experience is so abysmal, so revolting, that I gladly pay 2x-3x the price with regular state backed carriers, just to avoid ryanair.

I feel sad when I think about people who can not afford to do that, and must tolerate being pissed in the face, repeatedly, every time they travel with ryanair.

I do hope they disappear from the planet. The planet and the human race would be better off.

When is the EU fining these morons?

I would argue that 4 and 6 are not dark patterns but necessary CYA given they cover two of their most common complaints.

Let us not forget that, low cost carriers and full service carriers alike _all_ have artificially lower prices, prices below what it would actually cost to render their services, as the entire commercial aviation industry is subsidized in the form of fuel, tax and other subsidies. At least in the EU.

They wouldn't be able to turn a profit even if they squeezed you hard enough.

The Ryanair website is a who's who of everything you're supposed to avoid in UI/UX design.

"You must download the RyanAir app."

Leaving this here, as I couldn't leave it on authors blogpost:

I grew accustomed to these choices, so would navigate through them on autopilot. Once I was quick enough to get "We noticed suspicious activity indicating that you're a bot"; had to retry everything from beginning and hesitate when clicking :)

I find the dark patterns here acceptable because the prices on their flights are so grossly cheap. I can always fly on KLM, British Airways ect

Using the Ryanair website makes me feel icky. The whole thing feels like you have to be constantly on guard not to get tricked - and I'm relatively wise to these things.

I dread to think how much of their revenue is generated from people buying stuff they don't want or need.

I will always pay more to not use Ryanair, given the choice. Unfortunately I don't always have a choice.

It is crazy how dark patterns are happening everywhere, for instance, in my country on post office automatons: basically in their UI, when they are asking to input your email address (which does not work with self-hosted email addresses without DNS, namely with IP literals, BTW), you cannot "see" the button to skip that step, since the button is different from all the others and clearly 'melted' in the background.

I don't think this is a mistake, but something malicous clearly thought through.

> Don’t rent a car, don’t buy parking, don’t buy a train(?)

In Europe, it is pretty common to continue onwards to your actual destination by train!

Someone should make an extension that clarifies everything, kind of like the anti-enshitification extensions for youtube.

https://unhook.app/

I am now notoriously fast at speedrunning the various airlines and ticketing sites.

Wonder if that could be a YouTube Channel

I understand the frustrations, but...we're all grown adults here right? Who DOESN'T pay for seat selection if you want or need a good one? The insurance item is ridiculous, but...again, for grown adults with families/kids, do you really fly Ryanair?

I am shocked that Ryanair stoop to such levels, because the Irish always come across as actually morally superior to many other people, and I thought that would extend to just implementing good and honest business practices at the expense of profit. I am also similarly shocked about past GDP shenanigans, aiding in tax evasion by large multinationals, and the Irish privacy regulator being so weak on GDPR violations. I don't get it - just an a few bad apples I guess. And also this happens in other countries so it's ok

That “Don’t Insure Me” option hidden in the middle of a country list is pure evil. I’m used to seeing dark patterns everywhere but that’s a first for me.

To be fair, that is described as an 8 year old example. Their current UX is much more clear.

Their current pattern is more about playing into the fear of what happens without insurance, without selecting your seat, when you don't pay for early check in and forget to do it online on the day before the flight, or what happens if you show up with more or larger luggage than what you booked. Fears they themselves create with high fees for showing up with too much luggage or for checking in at the airport

There is still a bit of praying on people who are in a hurry or are impatient, don't read the screens and just click the most prominent button. The most obvious is the seat selection. But it's no longer the most prominent way they get you

> That “Don’t Insure Me” option hidden in the middle of a country list is pure evil.

I think they may actually have gotten in trouble for that one; they've stopped doing it (as noted in the article it was from eight years ago).

If Ryanair was in the computing world, Oracle's audit department would look like nice guys.

I always think these airline people see passengers as fish and put baits all over the places.

Eh, we might be all better off if a lack of curiosity was more regularly financially excruciating.

About 1/3 of their revenue is ancillary (the dark patterns are there to cause ancillary revenue).

Ryanair has severely improved my life, especially for my fellow sun-deprived Northern Europeans.

[1] https://investor.ryanair.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Ryan...

> £50. A similar flight in the US (DC to Miami, for example) would be easily 5x that, possibly 7-8x.

???

Maybe round-trip at a peak time. But if you're talking about one-way flights, you can fly across the entire country (NYC to SFO) for <$150 without hunting for a deal. DC to Miami is $50 (£37) each way, all of next month.

I don't find Ryanair much cheaper than Aer Lingus. In my experience there's up to a 20% premium, and I just cross checked the Alicante route for next week with the same results.

Compared to the high likelihood of delays or cancelled flights with Ryanair, I think it's worth it for peace of mind.

That math is completely off.

Those incidentals would not increase your fare 5-8 times. So that some passengers fall into the dark patterns cannot possibly make up for the price difference nor can the price difference to US be the base for your cost savings.