Ryanair issued an “urgent warning” on 26 January to customers travelling on Wednesday, 28 January 2026: its website and mobile app will be offline for scheduled maintenance between 01:00 and 01:30 GMT. During the 30-minute window, online check-in, new bookings, flight changes and name corrections will be impossible.
Although the Irish carrier describes the outage as routine, the timing could catch out London-area travellers booked on the first wave of morning departures from Stansted, Luton, Gatwick and regional UK airports. Those who fail to check in online beforehand risk airport check-in fees of up to £55—costs that many corporate travel policies will not reimburse.
If the planned outage prompts you to review other pre-trip essentials such as visas or passport validity, VisaHQ’s UK platform (https://www.visahq.com/united-kingdom/) can fast-track the paperwork. The service handles e-visas, passport renewals and document legalisation, ensuring travellers avoid last-minute surprises while airline systems are offline.
![Ryanair warns UK passengers to check in early ahead of 30-minute system shutdown]()
Ryanair recommends that all passengers departing on 28 January complete online check-in by 23:59 on 27 January or wait until the systems come back online after 01:30. Travel-programme administrators should cascade the notice to assignees, interns and other employee groups who may overlook airline e-mails sent outside office hours.
The carrier added that flights will operate as scheduled and airport check-in desks will remain open, but processing times could lengthen if significant numbers of passengers arrive without boarding passes. Employers with early-morning field engineers and consultants may wish to issue printed boarding passes or instruct travellers to save mobile passes to their digital wallets before the outage.
The episode is a reminder that low-cost carriers’ tight operational margins can amplify even brief IT outages, with knock-on costs for travellers who miss self-service deadlines.
Although the Irish carrier describes the outage as routine, the timing could catch out London-area travellers booked on the first wave of morning departures from Stansted, Luton, Gatwick and regional UK airports. Those who fail to check in online beforehand risk airport check-in fees of up to £55—costs that many corporate travel policies will not reimburse.
If the planned outage prompts you to review other pre-trip essentials such as visas or passport validity, VisaHQ’s UK platform (https://www.visahq.com/united-kingdom/) can fast-track the paperwork. The service handles e-visas, passport renewals and document legalisation, ensuring travellers avoid last-minute surprises while airline systems are offline.
Ryanair recommends that all passengers departing on 28 January complete online check-in by 23:59 on 27 January or wait until the systems come back online after 01:30. Travel-programme administrators should cascade the notice to assignees, interns and other employee groups who may overlook airline e-mails sent outside office hours.
The carrier added that flights will operate as scheduled and airport check-in desks will remain open, but processing times could lengthen if significant numbers of passengers arrive without boarding passes. Employers with early-morning field engineers and consultants may wish to issue printed boarding passes or instruct travellers to save mobile passes to their digital wallets before the outage.
The episode is a reminder that low-cost carriers’ tight operational margins can amplify even brief IT outages, with knock-on costs for travellers who miss self-service deadlines.
