Ryanair made 4yr old sit alone

You're not being unreasonable and I don't give a monkeys about being able to 'buy' seats. No child should be sat alone under any circumstances.

If people won’t pay a tenner to sit next to their dc then they can pay triple the price to travel with Jet2 or BA.

Ryanair provides a cheap way to travel around Europe, take it or leave it.

Maybe OP booked a last minute holiday and all of the seats were already paid for and reserved. Either way, Ryanair are an abysmal company, they don't care and I can believe this happened, I don't it would have happen with someone like jet2. I refuse to travel with Ryanair

No sympathy.
Pay for the seats like the rest of us 🤔

Regardless of the issue that you should have reserved seats, it appears from your op that you actually did manage to get 2 seats together in the end. And instead of sitting the 4 year old with an adult, you chose to sit them with their 7 year old sibling instead? Why on earth did you choose to do that? Unless I've read it wrong, in which case I apologise.

This! Why could one of the adults not have sat with a child each, since you seemed to have two seats next to each other? Then they wouldn't have been alone. Unless I'm confused?

But you have to pay to reserve a seat for the adult, so that the child can be beside them. Free for the child.

Its pretty common knowledge to pay for the seats if you need to be sat together. I don't know why anyone would risk it? I'm not surprised people didn't want to move if they've paid.
For what it's worth, I don't pay for my seat as an adult and would happily swap but I know many adults who don't love flying so pay to make sure they are sat by their companion.

I travelled with Ryan Air, on a number of occassions, never ever again! My 5 yr had to sit 2 rows down from me years ago.I was terrified if the plane got into difficulty would the person sitting next to him help my son. No was the answer! when major turbulance happened. Have you ever thought of this? This does happen, I have also paid to sit next to my husband who has cancer, heart problems etc. Returning to the Uk, they said no, we cannot sit together as the steward had to sit somewhere! And he was going to another flight onwards!
Needless to say we complained and got our money back. All they are after is b..s on seats.! If they could charge you for going to the loo , they would! Never, ever again. Don't care how cheap they are! Plus I wkd in the industry., and it has got so much worse!! They really don't give a sh..t and make up their own rules when you check in! Don't fly with this airline!

OP when you say no one was with the DC, what seats were you all in?

then surely the system would not let them check the tickets out without the reservations? None of this makes sense

So did your 4 year old actually spend 3 full hours sitting with complete strangers?

If you ended up getting 2 of the younger kids together, why didn't you or dh swap with one of them and sit with the youngest? The other 2 would have been fine for 3 hours as long as they knew where you where.

Also you a very unreasonable for not booking seats you wanted when everyone else does. I would have swapped with you out of pity for the young kids, not because I thought you where right.

Be sensible next time

I would if I was travelling without my own child. With a tiny bit of more empathy the world would be such a better place.

This is awful. Definitely look at your contracts. Christ 4 year old by herself!

Exactly. I am genuinely confused by all the people saying they should have paid. The policy says they have to sit together ie not a nice to have (in which case you would need to pay) but mandatory

Seen that happen too. Police called and family taken off.

Happened on a different flight and like you, nobody agreed to move. The couple went up and down the plane, with the steward asking. All very embarrassing, when we knew we had paid for our seats and clearly they hadn't. People are not going to pay for their own seat and then give it up for someone who hasn't.

I have also seen two adults refuse to move out of someone else’s reserved seats. A stand off. Plane delayed and everyone around them furious. They sat it out and eventually the people whose sears they were in gave way and sat elsewhere. The stewards were pretty rubbish in sorting it out.

They couldn't move you because other people had paid to sit together. Pay to book seats. It's annoying but part of the cost and why budget airlines aren't often as budget as they first seem.

Why did you put the 2 youngest together and not an adult with the youngest?

Yabu in expecting the staff to just sort this all out for you. Why didnt you book sears together?

We pay to choose seats next to each other and I'd be angry if I was just expected to move to accommodate someone who hadn't.

You need to take some responsibility for the situation.

But the policy says it is a free reservation as it is mandatory for children to sit with adults. So very confused- what would you pay for something that is mandatory. Ie the plane technically shouldn’t take off unless you are sitting together?

Sorry but you shouldn’t have been so tight and pre-booked your seats like the rest of us travelling with young children do.

You took the risk and didn’t get lucky this time. It’s 💯 your fault that your kids were in this situation and you need to take responsibility for your poor decision making as a parent.

When booking your flights did you have the option of selecting your seats at that point?

If you did, then in reality Ryanair didn’t make your 4 year old sit alone.

Budget airlines are budget airlines because they literally get you on board a flight.
In the 1980’s, everything that you may and may not have wanted was included in your ticket price.
Budget airlines stripped that all back.
Now if you want it you pay on top of the get your foot on the plane.

It's not true though is it. They say that to pressure people.

If noone moved, they won't refuse to take off, they will remove the 2 problem passengers.

Not least the admon of getting a new flight scheduled for the now delayed planeful of passengers. Plus it doesn't resolve the problem if everyone doubles down again.

This - I am guessing other people pay for seat allocation so did not want to be split.

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.

Shame on Ryanair.