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.

You need to pay up to sit together - just like everyone else.

I've not flown with Ryanair for years and certainly not with kids. The booking process in itself is a clusterfuck, so I avoid. Still think everyone saying they'd leave a 4 year old to sit themselves and not swap are horrible people.

That's not the point. The airline putting a child in danger like that is inexcusable.

Yo do know youre talking rubbish, and that it’s highly likely the OP has ‘misremembered’

in this case, no!

The parents did.

I'm not a horrible person.... I am a person who has paid and booked seats to sit with my own children however, therefore I wouldnt swap!

How was OP to know the airline would separate her from her child and hold her childs safety for a ransom? You're deplorable.

Also if it's fucking mandatory for parents to pay for seats next to their small children because Ryanair will not do it out of shitfuckery don't let the fucking booking progress until the person has bought a seat and come up with the error message warning the customer that they have to pay to complete the purchase. This is 100% Ryanairs fault. Shit company.

In this example, how exactly can the OP 'win'? She's the one who didn't follow the policy, which is made very clear at the time of booking.

Ryanair provided the service she paid for.

I disagree - Ryanair is responsible. If its their policy to sit children near a parent why would the OP think they wouldn't be?

For future reference OP Easyjet don't deliberately split parties- Ryanair do but again the under 12 policy should over rule that. I'm with the OPs disgust!

Some of you people are so vindictive towards children, I can't believe I'm reading some of these excessively harsh opinions on Mumsnet of all places.

Anyone who has read the CAA guidelines knows they just say NEAR not next to a child.

The adult had to pay for their seat reservation but the child are free.

This sort of thing is why I avoid flying with Ryanair if at all possible

What are you Ryanairs shit PR team? The purchase of the tickets should never have been allowed to progress if it was mandatory to buy a seat as the airline wouldn't seat a 4 year old with a parent without payment. They're a bunch of shits.

How long before the flight did you check-in? You book your seats at check-in, so the later you leave it, the more they get booked up, so the less choice you have. You can book up to 30 days before the flight usually- though its been a couple of years since I flew with Ryan Air as prefer easyJet. I recall not having an issue booking seats together.

If the OP's first message is truthful, they were seated nowhere close to one another.

This is a total breach of the guidelines.

Additional luggage, extra leg room seats , first class are extra perks, a standard seat on a plane is not an extra. This was never a thing in the past, charging more to reserve a seat next to someone is pure greed from the airline companies and all it does is cause problems as this happens all the time.

Pre book your seats imo

It generally doesn't, which is why some of us are wondering if the OP has 'misremembered' (as a PP put it).

Yes, this. Gobsmacked by everyone putting this on the parents 100%. In today's modern world, RyanAir's systems should have flagged this!!!!

So, the OP - with no posting history on MN and who hasn't returned to the thread....

• booked a flight somehow evading the RA mandatory policy about seat bookings for under 12s
• somehow agreed with other passengers to swap seats so that the 4yr old and 7yr old could sit together
• between her and her husband they thought this was a sensible seating solution rather than one of the adults sitting with the very youngest
• are now presumably stranded in Italy as her school age children were terrified to board another plane
• or managed to get terrified school age children on a return flight which didn't have the booking glitch that she experiened on outward bound flight

Pull the other one.....

Edited to remove extraneous bullet point!

Ryanair didn’t make a 4 year old sit alone. Her parents did by being too tight to book seats at the time of booking and then putting DD and DS together rather than an adult sitting with the 4 year old and having the two
older children sit seperately.

The CAA guidelines are clear that "next to" can mean in a row directly in front of or behind, or separated by an aisle.