Online check-in

Flights are considered to be the fastest way to travel. However, it might be true mostly when you take into consideration the time of flight. Usually, you need to also add time spent in queues at the airport.  Therefore, airline companies decided to meet expectations of their customers and offer a service called online check-in. How does it work?


This service enables to take care of formalities regarding their flights by themselves. The idea is to provide online all personal data by yourself. Data, that otherwise would have to be filled and verified by the staff at the airport. Basically, this procedure is very similar for all airlines and is rather intuitive.

Airline will notify you when online check-in is open. This time varies in different airlines – sometimes it is as early as dozen days, sometimes – just 24 hours. After finding your own reservation on the website, it is very easy to conduct the online check-in. All you need is an identity card (for travels within the European Union) or passport. It should be the same one that you intend to use during the travel. It is worth to remember that driving license is not consider as a valid travel document.  At this stage you also need to confirm the number of bags. Often, you can also select your seat.

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Once online check-in is finalized, you can print your boarding card. If you don’t have a printer – don’t worry. Many airlines enable to print boarding passes in one of the special machines at the airport. Often it is also possible to download boarding passes directly to your mobile. Some of the airlines have even created a special app. Although it seems to be the most convenient way, not every airlines have introduced it yet.

Why online check-in is so convenient? Once you have your boarding passes, you do not need to wait in the queue at the airport. You can go straight the baggage drop off. If you travel without registered baggage, it is even more convenient –you can proceed straight to the security check. It obviously means that you can save your time and shop up to the airport much later than it is the case with conventional check-in.

Some airlines treat online check-in mostly as  a convenience for its passengers. It means that passengers can go either for online or conventional check-in and it is not reflected in the price of the flight. However, it is worth to remember that some airlines, especially budget ones, perceive it mostly as a form of cost reduction. In such case,  you would need to pay an extra charge for the boarding card, while choosing conventional check-in at the airport.