Ryanair made 4yr old sit alone

[LHGL]

We had a really stressful experience recently and I don’t know if it’s just me who finds this completely unacceptable but I just feel the need to get this out there.
Family of 5; DH, myself, DD 4 and 9, DS 7. Both DD’s get very travel sick.
Just under 3 hour flight to Italy and we check in online in advance, and I notice nobody is sitting together. I mean nobody is even on the same row - 5C, 32F,19B etc. We click ‘change seats’ but there are no options. I read up on kids sitting alone and am relieved to hear that Ryanair policy is that anyone under 12 needs to sit next to an adult.
We get to the airport and tell the Ryanair woman at baggage, she’s says not to worry and they’ll make sure we’re sitting together at the gate. Get to the gate, same story but the cabin crew will sort us out.

we board the plane and the two flight attendants tell us the flight is busy and they can’t help. DH reminds them of the policy of kids and adults sitting together, and they shrug and tell us we’re blocking the aisle. After a little more polite protestation we’re told they’ll sort us out once seated.
They don’t. We tried to swap with people ourselves but only managed to get the two youngest together, people weren’t terribly helpful and luck was against us with language and some odd folk.
The long and short of it was that the flight was a very distressing experience for all, not least the kids, and I was really taken aback by how uncaring the Ryanair attendants were. They put more effort into trying to sell us scratch cards than attempting to stop my kids being terrified of ever getting on a plane again.

Anyone capable of travelling to Italy, booking flights and posting on MN is capable of reading the policy beforehand. You then either tolerate it or fly with someone else.

Why do we accept that we should pay this though?

If you book for 4 people at a restaurant, would you pay 25% more so your 5 and 7 year old aren't sat on separate tables with a different family? Crazy 😆

Super weird to be on mumsnet and resent children and families this much. So far tonight:

• Children whose parents don’t pay extra deserve to be alone next to strangers on flights, and
• Scrap family and child car spaces at supermarkets

Perhaps every adult should be randomly allocated a child next to them on all flights and have to pay extra to avoid it instead. I mean, if you want extras on a flight you should pay for it…

I think this is just a windup. I can't imagine Ryan Air to be this ruthless.

Ryanair offers free reserved seats for kids when travelling with an adult with a reserved seat. If you didn't bother to read the instructions, reserve your seat and select the free seats for your kids that's on you. I can't believe there are still people out there who just rock up with small kids and expect someone else to accommodate then for the sake of £20 extra (or whatever it costs with ryanair) when they book.

I wouldn't fly with any airline that didn't let me book seats in advance with young children.
It's completely unacceptable

It’s not about “hating children”. If you had paid extra to be able to sit next to your husband, wouldn’t you be irritated to be forced to move so a parent who didn’t pay, could sit next to their kid?

Im not saying you shouldn’t move, but it would highly irritate me because why should I have to pay however much extra and not get refunded for it

The other thing that is incredibly sad regardless of who paid what for seats is that no one would swap so that a 4 year old could sit with their parent. A FOUR year old. Just really disappointing to be honest. Maybe the OP did mess up but surely someone could have had a little bit of empathy for that poor child?

The policy states that for safety reasons, adults must be seated with under 12's. This supercedes the later mention of it being mandatory for the adult to book a seat.

If it is unsafe, the airline should EITHER have seated them together, or cancelled the booking.

The family should never have been seated apart. It's literally in the policy, and the responsibility for the airline to enforce and intercept.

Doesn't everyone know that you have to pay to sit together in Ryanair.

It gives you constant prompts to remind you when you are booking the tickets

You didn’t book seats together.

You checked in online in ADVANCE and saw that you weren’t sitting together.

Yet you didn’t try ringing them and sorting it out before you went to the airport?

I do think they should have sat one of you next to your youngest but this is only possible if others haven’t pre-booked their seats.

It definitely wouldn’t have been possible for them to sit all of your kids next to their parents because there wouldn’t have been enough seats.

You need to take some responsibility for this one.

You can book seats with children flying Ryan. OP didn't. Her choice.

How do you know it supercedes it. Are you just coming out with that?

This is also it! We all just accept this nonsense it persists! It's not even that much cheaper in the end that some competitors. ....

I can't understand how the OP missed that you have to pay to sit together.

There are so many things when you go on ryanair. It say "if you want to choose any seat you have to pay'

If you don't want to pay, you will get randomly allocated seats.

The policy does kind of read weirdly, because they’ve essentially said you need to travel together AND there must be a seat booking. Wondering if they basically reserve the right to not let you board if you don’t comply?

I’ve got young children though, and I am heartily sick of people just chancing their arm that someone else will swap with them - including other people with families. No I will not swap with you, I paid to sit together with my family, I don’t care what needs your children have because I clearly booked mine together for a reason.

Weird just flew with them and booked seats when booked flights which obviously we paid for........

I know!!!

Theyre not a restaurant though.

It's their rules. No one has to fly with them.

They are a lot cheaper than other airlines

If the rest of the passagers had paid for seats what kan Ryan do then? Nothing. They can't force prople to move.

Could have just asked the parent if they would pay though at that point tbh. I'm sure if I was in that situation with my 4 year old I would happily pay someone at that stage if that's what it took.

You need to pay the extra fee to sit together.
I think it’s CF for parents to think airlines will sit them together, book your seats and don’t expect others to exchange with you. Very entitled behaviour.

This doesn’t surprise me at all. I’ve had horrible experiences with Ryanair. They don’t care about their customers and don’t care about causing children to suffer. There’s also no real way to complain about their staff’s appalling behaviour. All you can really do is make sure you never fly with them again.

But sure why would they swap if they've paid for their seats!!!

Whn you book a seat on ryanair, you have the choice to pay more for a better seat.

For example it says "if you want an aisle seat with extra leg room it is 40 pounds"

Why would someone who has paid for a good seat, then swap seats.

OP should have paid for seats.

Somebody did agree to swop but the OP chose not to have an adult sit with the 4 year old but made her 7 year old look after them! So the outrage about the 4 year old not being looked after is totally faux. In fact, had the OP or her husband sat with the 4 year old, as any sane parent would have done, then it would have been a 7 and 9 year old sitting by themselves on a short haul flight. That obviously doesn’t tug the heart strings in quite the same way though!