Wizz Air Boarding Pass: Times and Pitfalls to Avoid

Online check-in opens 30 days before departure and closes 3 hours before departure. The nuance around opening matters: this window only applies if a seat was purchased when booking or afterwards. Without a selected seat, the airline only opens check-in the day before the flight, roughly twenty-four hours before departure.

These times are counted against the scheduled departure time, in local time at the departure airport. If your flight has been rescheduled, the airline states you must first accept the new time in your WIZZ account, otherwise check-in won't unlock.

Three routes exist with Wizz Air: the wizzair.com website, the WIZZ account in the mobile app, and the airport desk. At the airport, airport check-in is chargeable, except at certain airports (e.g. Agadir-Al Massira) where it is free due to online check-in not being available. This airport check-in fee can be bought when booking, later on the flight summary page, or on the spot: according to the airline's public information, buying it in advance costs less than paying at the desk.

Wizz Air also sells a paid automatic check-in service that checks in every passenger on the booking about two days before departure and emails the boarding passes. It can be added at any time up to 4 hours before the flight, and must be purchased for each flight segment as well as for each passenger on the booking.

A point often overlooked: a minor child must be accompanied and checked in online by an adult passenger on the same booking, per the age conditions published by the airline.

Once check-in is done, the boarding pass can be downloaded and printed, viewed at any time in the app, or saved to the phone's Wallet on iOS. Note that not every airport supports the mobile pass: in that case no mobile pass is generated, and you must go through wizzair.com to access the booking and print it. The airline's website offers an airport selector to check this before you travel.

Two situations require a desk visit even after a successful online check-in:

• if you hold non-European (EU) travel documents, you must go to the check-in counter to have them verified and your boarding pass stamped.
• An invalid boarding pass: go to the check-in desk to have it corrected.

If you add priority boarding or a seat after checking in, you'll either need to reprint the pass or go to the desk for a sticker reflecting the change. After a flight change or a passenger name change, check-in must be redone and the pass reprinted.

At the boarding gate, present your pass and travel documents no later than 30 minutes before the scheduled departure time.

Airport check-in and baggage drop open 2 hours before departure and close 40 minutes before departure. Several airports apply tighter schedules with an earlier cutoff, notably Eindhoven, Málaga, Dubai, London Luton, Berlin Brandenburg, Bucharest, Milan Malpensa, Rome Fiumicino, Abu Dhabi, Tel Aviv, Jeddah, Riyadh, Dammam, Kuwait, as well as flights departing Vienna to these Gulf destinations. The full list is on the airline's official website: check the exact time for your airport, and allow extra time rather than cutting it close.

With pre-booked assistance, a special request or special needs, Wizz Air advises checking in at least 2 hours before the scheduled departure. Checked baggage follows the allowance bought with the ticket, and only the drop-off desk lets you hand it over: cabin baggage, on the other hand, stays with you until the gate.

When the check-in page refuses to move forward, start by checking that the window is indeed open for your flight, then that your departure airport offers online check-in. Wizz Air then lists steps to try: use wizzair.com from a computer or the WIZZ mobile app, go through Google Chrome, clear your browsing history and cookies, try incognito mode, and accept any schedule change in your WIZZ account. If the block persists, or if some information was entered incorrectly, the fix goes through the airline's call centre or live chat. The message stating an email address has already been used for other passengers falls under live chat. A ticket bought via an online travel agency must be sorted out with the agency, not the airline.

The travel document details must match exactly the document shown at the airport: if you entered a national ID card, you cannot travel with only a passport, and vice versa. For a trip within the Schengen area, this information isn't requested during online check-in.

Missed check-in: if the formalities aren't completed in time, or if you arrive too late at the desk or gate, the booking is cancelled and boarding refused. Wizz Air then refunds the amount paid after deducting other services and seat protection fees, and recommends taking out insurance in advance. Another useful deadline: a flight or passenger name change remains possible up to 4 hours before the scheduled departure time, for a fee.

Deadlines differ from one airline to another, including among Wizz Air's direct competitors: see the rules at easyJet, the process at Eurowings, the schedule applied by Jet2, the case of Iberia Express and that of Norwegian. If you'd rather not keep an eye on the opening yourself, iBoardingPass can carry out online check-in on your behalf as soon as it opens and email you your boarding pass.