A Brussels-based EU executive with ties to Ireland has failed in a bid to legally force Ryanair pay him compensation for a missed flight just over a year ago.

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.

He said Ryanair staff had told him that because he had not checked in online, and would have to pay a preflight fee for a manual check-in, they would not have enough time to handle his boarding details before the flight had been scheduled for take off 40 minutes later.

Judge Browne heard that, by a cruel irony, the plane he had booked to take him to Dublin, and which he had missed by only two minutes, had to stand on the airport apron for the following four hours because of a snowstorm delay.

Mr Murphy, who represented himself, said he had to overnight in Brussels and pay an extra €100 to transfer to a flight the following day. He had also sought a refund of his €250 ticket and had brought a compensation claim against Ryanair, a claim that had been thrown out in the Small Claims Court.

In his appeal to the Circuit Court, Mr Murphy claimed Ryanair had wrongly failed to facilitate him at the Brussels airport. He told Judge Browne he had been delayed due to his mobile phone having been stolen on the day of departure and due to weather conditions.

Barrister Kenneth P Hyland, who appeared for Ryanair with Ennis and Associates Solicitors, told the court the airline was strictly obliged, under EU regulations, to close its check-in 40 minutes before the aircraft’s scheduled take-off time.

He said Ryanair, like other airlines, could not under any circumstances breach this EU regulatory statute by issuing latecomers with a boarding pass outside the stipulated 40-minute cut-off deadline before the scheduled time of departure.

Mr Hyland said that by Mr Murphy’s logic he would be entitled to turn up and be issued with a boarding pass two minutes or one minute or even 30 seconds before the stipulated statutory closure of the check-in which, in any case, was beyond Ryanair’s powers.

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Jessica Brady, Ryanair’s ground operations front-of-house procedures and training manager, told the court that a passenger could not check in “at departure time minus 40 minutes”. 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.

“Check-in closures are usually operated on the instructions of airport operation managers and we close at departure minus 40 no matter what,” she said.

Ms Brady added that Mr Murphy had pre-booked his flight but had not checked in online. 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. This, together with a manual card payment process, would have added four to five minutes to his return to check-in time and then the usual formalities of passport and boarding checks would have taken another four to five minutes.

She said if Ryanair had allowed this to happen it would have caused an impossible breach of the regulation by eight to 10 minutes and this could not have been permitted.

Judge Browne, who had been told that the consequent four-hour weather delay was outside Ryanair’s hands, said an eight to 10 minute check-in delay would have taken the airline outside the time stipulated by the EU statute and she could not allow his appeal.

Mr Murphy, who is head of an EU Inter Pares programme in Brussels which works on strengthening democracies, had arrived late for the flight and the judge affirmed the dismissal decision of the Small Claims Court.