Could someone clued into such things advise me why it's even necessary to check in for a flight with no baggage? You've bought the ticket, and Ryanair swear they don't overbook, so why can't you enter passport details at the time of purchase and get your boarding card at that time?
Just curious of course...
Because the airline needs to know how many passengers will be on the flight and they need to have the names of the passengers.
With roughly 10 percent no-shows (passenger buys cheap ticket and does not fly) you would never know if you have got all passengers on board!
And I can tell you - itīs trouble every day to sort out missing web-check-in passengers.
If they allow you to check in months in advance the number of missing web-check-ins would explode, which in turn makes it even more difficult to get the final figures in the loadsheet!