How to cancel a flight with Ryanair

Date: 13 Jun 19

There are many reasons you may want to cancel your flight with Ryanair but as with most budget airlines they don’t make the process easy and the likelihood of cancelling a Ryanair flight and getting a full refund depends entirely on the circumstances of why you need to cancel your Ryanair flight.

Reasons for cancelling a RyanAir flight

• You no longer wish to fly to that destination
• A member of your party can no longer take the flight
• Death of an immediate family member who is not on the flight
• Death or illness of yourself or person booked to travel
• Political instability or terrorism
• RyanAir can no longer offer the flight

Unfortunately, RyanAir does not accept all of these are valid reasons for cancelling a flight.

Invalid reasons for cancelling a RyanAir flight

• You wish to cancel your RyanAir flight because you have changed your mind about flying to that destination in which case RyanAir will allow you to change your booking upto 2.5 hours before your flight is scheduled to depart. Fees for changing your RyanAir flight range from £35 - £95 plus and price difference between the old and new flight. If you do not travel on the flight you have booked you can only apply for a refund of any Government Tax charged. (£17 per passenger). Changes can be made via the My Bookings section or by calling the RyanAir customer services centre. Government Tax refunds can be made at the following link: https://refundclaims.ryanair.com/
• If yourself or someone else on your booking no longer wishes to fly this is also not a valid reason for RyanAir to cancel your flight. If you wish to change the name on your flight to another traveller it can cost between £115 - £160 depending on whether you do it before your flight or at the airport. It can often be cheaper to book a new flight than change the name on a booking. Changes can be made via the My Bookings section or by calling the RyanAir customer services centre

Valid reasons for cancelling a RyanAir flight

• If an immediate family member dies either before or during your journey you can apply for a refund of your RyanAir flight. Using the following link https://refundclaims.ryanair.com/ - the site requests your flight reservation number, relationship to the deceased as well proof of their death which usually means the Certificate of Death. RyanAir considers the following people as “immediate”: Husband or Wife, Civil Partners, Children, Parents,  Brothers and Sisters, Grandparents and Grandchildren, Father or Mother in law, Son or Daughter in law. These exceptions also include your travel companions if they also no longer wish to travel. 

• If you or your travel companion is taken ill then RyanAir will allow you to cancel your flight at their discretion. Again proof of the illness will have to be provided. RyanAir will offer to change your flight date or offer a full refund if it is satisfied with the reason you cant travel
• If RyanAir suffers a delay of over 5 hours they are then legally obliged to offer you a full refund or re-routing on an alternative flight. This applies to industrial action, weather, acts of terrorism or advice from the Foreign Office.