Ryanair made 4yr old sit alone

You could pay for seats when checking in online. This was only available 1 week before flying - I logged in to to it and there wasn't enough seats available for all of us. Since some people were missing seats, I couldn't book only a few... it was all or nothing and I couldn't allocate everyone. Which is why I got in touch with travel agent who assured me it was fine.

I was all for paying for seats together but I'm guessing there was a glitch on the app? I've no idea.

Without paying for it, One adult is probably seated with the child, if the seats are available.

However if other people have paid for a lot of the seats and the OP hasn't paid for any, that's why they weren't together

I thought ryanair were bad until I flew with TUI.

Never , ever again.

I've flown plenty of times with Ryanair without paying for seats and one adult has always been sat with the children...I thought their algorithm made sure it happened automatically so surprised by this.

You shouldn't have to pay to be next to a child. (Though you do have to pay if you want both adults travelling next to each other)

I'm my experience Ryanair not much difference than any other cheap airline - and they are the only ones that go directly the route we travel often so we fly with them often. Hope this is just a blip.

No, they can't, unless they were prepared to compensate the person who moved of course. But it's Ryanair, and getting a refund from them is like getting blood out of a stone.

@Whoknows101 exactly. Only ever flown with them when I've had to work in Dublin and I wasn't paying. I'd sooner hop to my holiday destination than fly with RuinAir

Booking a 3rd party package holiday that puts you on a Ryanair flight is completely different. I fly RA around 30 times a year and wouldn't advise anyone to use 3rd party booking. They don't want it and won't support it or help you if there are issues.

You are being very unreasonable.

You'd have to be living with a tribe in the Amazon for the last 20 years to not know that Ryanair is genuinely one of the least well regarded businesses (not just airlines) on the entire planet in terms of customer service.

I refuse to fly with them as a result. If you insist on doing so then you have to 100% plan for the absolute worst - which means pre-booking seats to sit next to your children, or flying with another airline if this is not possible.

If there were no seats together then what can they do? Can they force people who have pre booked and paid for their seats to move?

Ryanair are awful I'd only fly with them if there were no other options. Last time I flew with them the seat was covered in crumbs, so they don't bother to clean the plane between flights.
I hate that airlines charge to book seats in advance. But I pay it because it's important to me we sit together.

Cool, so you're one of these people who thinks people travelling without children should sacrifice their own needs and comforts that they have paid for because a parent can't plan properly.

As a disabled adult who flies for work at times and travels without my kids, I can absolutely tell you if you think you have a right to bump me into a middle seat because you have a kid, you would be told where to go.

You are not entitled to know why someone has paid for a particular seat any more than you are entitled to anyone swapping with you.

I would say that's a very recent change. Before they warn you 4 times, now you can not proceed. Probably because of parents who think it doesn't apply to them and someone should swap with them causing a fuss.

And if it's mandatory then their system should take away the onus on customers to book the correct thing and just auto assign a parent and child seats together at point of transaction (the cheap seats are fine, no one is suggesting they bask in the luxury of the £19 aisle). Either it's mandatory or it's not.

This.

It’s definitely not as easy as just pay for seats together with Ryan air. We booked a package holiday with love holidays. When I logged into the Ryan air site to change /look at the seats. They’d placed one of us with the kids but the other adult miles away. I tried to change it and even though there were seats available the seats kept reverting back. I tried on the app as well. Nightmare. Doesn’t seem to be anyone to speak to on the phone either

So why didn't your DH just go to the other end of the plane when your 4 year old was kicked out of their seat.

Because DH was in a different row from me, 4 year old would still have been alone if they swapped.

Ryanair didn’t make your child sit alone. You did, because you failed to book and pay for seats together when given the option.

Regardless of who did what, I think it's bonkers that any child of that age could be seated next to an unknown adult away from parents. Given some of the experiences female friends of mine have had on flights with creeps trying to stroke their legs or put hands in places they shouldn't, it's a safeguarding nightmare allowing a 4yo to sit next to a stranger like that.

Even if OP should have paid or not, it's a ridiculous policy or failing of the system if this was even able to happen. Auto-assign one adult and one child a seat together at booking, doesn't have to be near the other parent and child but a young child and adult should always be seated together and it shouldn't need to be booked specifically like this for it to be a common sense policy.

OK take that one back but many, many other posters just said they wouldn't swap but not because they are sitting next to their child but because of money.

Perhaps, you could have infered from my posts that I'm not expecting someone to leave another child, given my point of being away from their care giver? But no, for some reason I want another child to be left alone?! 🙄

There are 400 odd posts now, I'm not reading the detail of every single last one of them, but also expecting too much from those on this thread to care for a 4 year old over some £££

And that was an 10 hr flight to Orlando.

So you thought you’d save the money, not book seats, and force their hand to seat you together. Classic example of “f*ck around and find out” I guess. Perhaps next time you’ll pay to book seats like the rest of us do?

I have young children, and I wouldn’t have swapped seats with you either. I think it’s rude to expect others to accommodate your unwillingness to take the sensible (paid for) option.

Why should you have to pay for reserved seats when legally you and your child can't sit apart? It's ridiculous that airlines get away with this
Why not?
You pay for what you need. People with children need a seat so that is part of the tariff.

People without children don't
Its like saying its ridiculous buying a child seat for the car. You have to because its a legal requirement if you a travelling with a child in your car. I dont have a child, therefore I dont have to buy a car seat.

I've had years of paying for everyone to sit together on some airlines and that was OK. It usually still worked out cheaper than going with another carrier anyway.

We had this exact situation with British Airways in April. Except we HAD paid to be sat together and had checked into those seats 24hrs before...then their system crashed...so everyone was reallocated random seats. Our 7 year old twins (one who has autism) were sat rows away from us and the cabin crew just wanted me to shut up and sit down for take off. It was honestly shocking that they were allowed to treat us with so little care. It's put us off travelling tbh. Extortionate prices everywhere you go but not the service to match it.

But Ryanair trade openly and proudly on their "FuckYou Customers" policy. Michael O Leary loves to mouth off about how right he is about everything, including this.

So I voted YABU because you were: to choose to fly Ryanair and expect anything different.

Shocking experience but not surprising.

And a lot of other Airlines!