Ryanair made 4yr old sit alone

Presumably because they have a policy that children under 12 need to be seated with an adult, so they didn't think they'd be separated anyway?

This is clearly a fault of Ryanair and not OP!

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I'm confused re how this happened. As PPs have said, and it's been my experience too: if you book a child ticket on RyanAir's website you can't proceed to checkout without paying for at least one adult ticket and choosing a paid adult seat plus free seats for each child. If you accidentally select non-adjacent seats - for example 9F and 10F instead of 9E and 9F - there's a hard error. If seats together aren't available, you physically can't book that flight.

If something happens after the booking is complete so that your original seat assignments aren't good anymore (change of aircraft, or re-routed due to a delayed flight/missed connection) they are supposed to keep you in the gate area until they have assigned appropriate seats that meet the child seating policy. If that's not possible they book you on the next flight. Whether RyanAir's system had a flaw and accepted your initial booking in error or the system or a human changed something in error later or whoever booked the tickets somehow did something incorrect, the gate agents were in the wrong for telling you to board and saying they'd sort it out later (and then not doing so).

Can you check your original flight confirmation and see what it says in terms of ticket types (did it correctly record the three tickets as children?) and seat assignments (did the assigned seats somehow change, oir get wiped out and reassigned by default)? And/or make a formal complaint about what happened; let Ryanair tell you what caused the disconnect.

I presume you didn’t realise you had to pay to reserve a seat and that even if you did, Ryanair have a broad interpretation of sitting “together” and thus may have only meant adjacent row. A hard lesson learnt. Pay to reserve seats next time for all.

How long before did you checkin @LHGL ?

No-one can read on here. See latest post.

Poor parenting, don't blame the airline for your own shortcomings.

I'm not sure why so many are berating the OP for not paying for seats. According to Ryanair's policy an adult travelling with kids HAS TO PAY for a seat anyway, which OP would have done. Up to four children for every paid adult ticket will then be seated with the adult. In this case Ryanair seems to have violated its own policy. Unless I'm missing something.

"For safety reasons, children under the age of 12 must sit beside an accompanying adult, and infants (aged 8 days to 23 months inclusive) must sit on an accompanying adult’s lap. It is mandatory for an adult travelling with children under 12 (excl. infants) to reserve a seat. A maximum of four children for every one adult on the same booking will receive a reserved seat free of charge. This ensures parents of young children sit together during the flight. This will also allow you to check-in for your flight 60 days before departure. It is not mandatory for any other adults or teenagers in the booking to reserve a seat, however they may choose to do so if they wish to seat with the rest of the family."

It's a safety issue if nothing else. In an emergency who would have looked after your kids. I'd have taken them off the flight before I'd be separated from them tbh.

You don't need to. Their policy states children will automatically be allocated a seat with an adult.

You'd have to have a hard heart not to let a four year old sit next to their family, let's face it

Begs belief

Why didn’t you book seats together when you bought your tickets?

But they shouldn't have to pay more than other passengers just to fulfil Civil Aviation Authority rules. Ryanair used to get away with charging disabled passengers for assistance until they were pulled up on it.

I wouldn't fly with these budget airlines. They are the total pits. Why didn't you pay to reserve your seats.

But they would have had to pay for all the adults seats regardless - you HAVE to pay for adult seats when travelling with kids, it’s automatically added and then when you get to seat booking it shows which rows your PAID seat can be chosen from! We would have paid anyway but we couldn’t opt out. Ryanair changed their booking terms a year or two ago to make if mandatory for a parent to pay for a seat if travelling with a child.

If you travel with an under 12 child their seat is free but the adult HAS to pay for a seat, there is no choice (they changed the rules about a year or two ago so it’s an automatic charge) - if you look at the breakdown of costs the “included” seat tends to costs £8/10 - when you are asked if you want to book a seat it then shows what rows are included (ie what you’ve already been charged for) and the price variation if you go for a more expensive row but is you go for a different row your child no longer qualifies for a free seat and must pay full price in the new row. OP HAD to pay - as they had 3 kids both adults would have had the extra seat charge added but the seats together were obviously gone or the included rows were gone. It is a silly system!

The days of chancing your arm and not paying to sit with kids are gone - you get charged automatically when you book so Ryanair should have provided them with seats and should refund the fee they already took to sit together!

This. How revolting I would have complained as not prepared to look after a vomiting child that is not my own.

Why didn’t you pay to select your seats in advance?

Im sure every passenger who paid to choose their seat thought the quote
“your poor planning does not constitute as my emergency”

Entitled parents strike again because they decided to procreate

Completely on you for not paying to book seats together. Of course other people didn’t want to swap, they had likely paid for their seats and viewed you as a CF. Can’t stand it when people do this and then expect staff and the other passengers to solve the problem.

you need to book seats together instead of using the 'young kids should not sit away from parents' entitlement. I travel with Ryanair occasionally with 2 disabled teens. I always pay for the seats. Yes, it adds costs but that is how Ryanair works. I wouldn't be happy to give up or my teens seat that I paid for just some people who couldn't bother to do the same can sit together. I would image many people feel the same. What can the cabin crew do if people refuse to swap? This really is only on you!

Agree with pp - Ryanair did not make your 4 year old sit alone, you did by failing to prepare.

I've been in the position of being asked to move seats for a family who didn't feel like paying the extra. I moved, as I was travelling alone, but it pissed me off.

If booked with a travel agent you may not be able to change your seats as you cannot access the booking

I'm astonished no one would swap with you. I would pay good money not to be sitting next to someone else's 4-year-old. Just being able to swap would seem like a bargain.

the seats should be sorted at check-in, not at the gate or on the plane. You should have not left check-in until they sorted your seats there because once everyone has their boarding passes there isn’t much the gate or flight attendants can do