go to check-in for visa check and boarding card

thank you for your help the Ryanair company said the same thing : Hi, in that case you have to go to a Visa check at the airport and you will receive your boarding card there

I have an experience on 9th Nov 2021 at Malaga, Spain airport for Ryan Air flight to Glasgow, UK, the person I was travelling with had a USA passport and only hand luggage. We arrived at airport 2 hours before flight to figure out this non-EU Visa check, whereas normally when I travel by myself I would arrive 1 hour before.

They only had their passport and this "not a boarding card" PDF on their phone which they received when they checked-in online. They had no other printed documentation.

There was a large queue at check-in so first we went to the ticket desk and explained we had already checked in online and just needed the boarding pass printed and the visa checked, however we were still directed to join the long check-in queue.

It took about 30 minutes queuing to get to the check-in desk, there were 3 desks open but 1 desk was being used for last minute checkin and possibly priority customers. When people in the big queue realised they were about to miss their flight they left the queue and went to that last minute desk, which shortened the queue for us. If that hadn't happened we probably would have been queuing for at least an hour. If we had been really short on time we probably would have used this desk instead of waiting in the long queue.

At the desk they just showed their passport and the boarding pass was printed - this was a traditional rectangular paper boarding pass you would get for a non-budget airline. There was no need to show the PDF "Not a boarding card" on their phone. Thankfully there was no charge, so no €50 check-in at airport fee and no €20 boarding pass print fee. I'm not sure if there would have been a charge if they had not checked in online already. Luckily we also didn't incur any costs trying to print out documents in the city we were on holiday visiting.

After this we returned to the ticket desk but now there was a family enquiring about something, after about 10 minutes wait, luckily the person at the desk remember us and offered to do the "Visa check" and let us skip the family. Passport and boarding pass were handed over and after a few minutes the pass was stamped and handed back.

Now we could proceed to security where boarding pass was scanned. Funnily enough, someone ahead of us showed their "not a boarding pass" document to the security guard and they were told to go to check-in to get their boarding pass. They were quite stressed about this so I assume they were short on time and I'm not sure if they made their flight.

Because of all this extra queueing I would suggest arriving 2 hours before the flight just as if you are checking bags.

Note: this was during Covid times and we also had the UK passenger locator form PDF on our phones and had proof of vaccination which for the USA person was their CDC card which were both shown at check-in desk and resulted in a red sticker put on the boarding pass. Since I had mobile boarding pass in my Apple Wallet instead they put the red sticker on my UK passport.

Yes. You have a check-in receipt, not a boarding pass. From https://www.ryanair.com/ee/en/useful-info/travel-documentation/travel-documentation

“Irrespective of a passenger's visa requirements, all non-EU/EEA citizens must have their travel documents checked and stamped at the Ryanair Visa/Document Check Desk before going through airport security. Your boarding pass will display this information for routes that you must comply with this Visa/Document checks requirement.”

is that normal?

Yes. It clearly says "THIS IS NOT BOARDING CARD". It's just a check in receipt.

This typically happens if the airline wants/needs to check your documents before they will give you a real boarding pass. So just follow the instructions: take your receipt and documents to the check in counter, and you'll get the actual boarding pass there.