The Common Boarding Pass Mistake That Could Ruin Your Airport Experience

You're about to get on a plane. You've got your carry-on, your $7 bottle of water, and your travel pillow. Now all you have to do is wait for your group to be called and show your boarding pass to get on the plane. However, if you have that boarding pass on your phone, there are a number of issues that can come up. Not printing your boarding pass — even if you have it on your mobile device — is a common mistake that could ruin your airport experience.

Most of us rely on our phones and airline apps to scan when boarding a flight, but there are some really good reasons to print your pass, whether at home or at the airport. For instance, while you're sitting and waiting to be called, you may be playing games on your phone, talking to a friend, or doing some last-minute work ... until you realize that your phone is about to die, and boarding has already started. Now, you're holding up the flight while waiting for the gate agent to print you a new pass. 

That's not the only reason it's important to keep a hard copy of your boarding pass. Apps crash all the time, and while a screenshot of your boarding pass is allowed – as long as it has all the pertinent information on it — even that can pose issues. If your screen is cracked (and it's easy to drop your phone at the airport while juggling luggage), the QR code may not scan. Or your screen may keep flipping (as it always tends to do when you really need it to stay still), making it take longer to scan. To put it simply, a printed boarding pass is worth it if you want to avoid hassle.

Other things can happen at the airport that can interfere with using a mobile boarding pass. Your phone may run out of data, and there may be no Wi-Fi connection in the airport. Moreover, if you've been on a flight without Wi-Fi for hours, your apps may begin to update as soon as you reconnect, using up data and battery life. (It's best not to connect to airport Wi-Fi anyway, but keep our data-protection tips in mind if you have to.) Or you may have stashed your phone in your bag as you went through the TSA security checkpoint, and now you have to dig for it when you get to the front of the line. 

Believe it or not, there are still airports that won't take a mobile pass or a screenshot, like — at the time of this writing — all the airports in Morocco and Türkiye (other than Dalaman), for example. Even if you're at an airport that accepts a mobile pass, there can be issues with your ticket that require you to hand the pass to a gate agent more than once. You'll have to keep unlocking your phone for them if the screen goes dark, which can be troublesome.

Before you plan to print your pass at the airport kiosk, know that it's best to print your boarding pass at home or at your hotel's business center. Some airlines charge money to print tangible passes, like RyanAir, which has a fee of almost $25 to do so. Spirit Airlines charges $2 to print at a kiosk and $10 to do so at a ticket counter. Finally, don't throw away your old boarding pass after you've used it, as it has personal information that you need to keep private.