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.

So you were cheap skates?

I consider it as the cost stripped /removed so if you don't care and therefore are flexible then you get to go cheaper - like the single riders queue at the theme parks - where single spots are left they can fill up with the flexible passengers

The OP was almost certainly a journalist or an amateur blogger. Not that it's a stretch to believe that an airline so notorious for being a bunch of bent, mercenary bastards has once again run true to type. If they have indeed broken safety protocol, that doesn't surprise me. But there's a distinct miasma of BS hanging off the remainder of the story. Do they expect people to believe that a passenger complement of hundreds doesn't contain at least one mug who is willing to capitulate to the CF and happily switch seats? In the unlikely event that this is genuine and a whole planeful of people really has doubled down, it would signal that people are getting thoroughly sick of CFs expecting them to move to accommodate someone else at their own expense.

MSM and SM can't get enough of a 'CF airline story' and never tire of regurgitating variations on this theme. Albeit October's a little late in the year, maybe they wanted to complete their fill before the lean winter months.

Surely the idea of young children sitting with a parent is safety in the event of an incident? Definitely complain.

I have never gone with Ryanair but have always pre-booked our seats with our young children to ensure we are sat together.

I don't understand people not booking seats when they need to sit together.

I would take the policy you mention, that you need to ensure you pre-book your seats if you are travelling with children under 12. I mean how can they guarantee you will be sat next to each other if all the other seats get selected?

You have always had to book to stay together. Ryan air will split you up if you don't book (you pay for the adults, kids seats are free)

Re travel sick children, @LHGL Children's Kwells or Stugeron work very well.

Or perhaps parents flying with under 12s should not be able to book without a reserved seat.

If the flight was completely full, then it was probably a case of accept the seats as-is or disembark and catch a later flight. It's quite possible this was the situation but it doesn't suit OP's case. A flight my family of 4 had to Menorca 12 years ago had all 4 of us scattered about the plane as we booked the last available seats. Youngest was 11 so we didn't really care too much.

You fly cheap, you get cheap.

I didn’t think they could on Ryanair, but perhaps their systems were different when OP booked

Also totally acceptable. Comes back to this being a systems failure (and not 100% on the parents).

This is why I’d never fly Ryan air.

Virgin and jet2, have ALWAYS put us together.

Look, I agree that the booking system should be changed to prevent people from booking without following the instructions, but there is equally an onus on parents travelling with young children to actually read the booking information instead of just making assumptions that it will all be ok. It's very well known that you need to book seats on budget airlines if you care about who you sit with, so I would expect parents to check. And the policy makes it very clear that adults are required to book a seat, so if the OP didn't realise this, then it was on her for not reading the policy properly.

Yes, the airline has a duty of care towards its passengers and needs to keep them safe, but in case you haven't noticed, parents also have responsibility for ensuring that appropriate arrangements are in place for their kids.

Exactly this (though your post won't last long for saying it).

Recently had to pay over £100 to ensure our family sat together on a flight. Flying out there was hardly anyone else on the plane so it felt like a huge waste of money. Coming back it was much busier and I was pleased we had planned ahead.

To my knowledge airlines will try and sit you near your children. But near could mean behind, in front of or on separate rows. It's really unfair to expect people to swap. I mean yeah it's the decent thing to do if you're adults or solo travellers but I still think it's on you to ensure you're with such young kids.

We had something similar for summer hols. Not Ryanair, TUI and booked through travel agent.
We could only check in on app a week before hols. I did - there weren't enough seats...
I emails travel agent & was assured the seats I could see online were 'buffer seats' for airline to move things around & not to worry, we'd be checked in at airport.
Well. Airport checkin was a disaster and we had locations all over plane.
Also the 'buffer seats' comment was lie as airplane was full.
Thankfully someone in the row across from me didn't fly so DH moved near me I had our 18 month old on my lap.
Our 7 & 11 year olds were nowhere near us so we had to keep checking they were ok (they were happy out, thank God) but it's BIZZARE to not seat families together when checking in wasn't an option.

Same for the way home, I managed to get us close... not as bad as way out but still not sitting together.

Also there were 19 of us total in party and NONE of us were seated near each other.

I feel your pain OP.
At least you managed flight ok 🙌

I wish pp would stop quoting CAA guidance for Ryanair, they're governed by EASA since they're headquartered in the EU.
Yes RyanAir are shit, you get what you pay for

Yes, this.

It is not that you get free reserved seats if you have young children, it's that you should PAY to sit together. Like everyone else has to. So why oh why did you think you could just get things for free when you turned up?

Why didn't you book your seats in advance? That's absolutely an option with TUI.

This is pretty outrageous. I’ve had the same situation with British Airways before when there was a problem with online check in and we couldn’t sit together as by the time we got to the airport, there weren’t enough seats left for us to be a x4 or two x2. They assured us they’d sort it due to having the same policy (or is it actually a legal requirement?) and they did. I was so relieved.

Similarly our flight was cancelled recently and we were put onto a different flight with a booking made about 2 hours before departure time. I had to ask a man to swap with me so I could sit with my husband and young children. Fortunately he was very relaxed about it which I really appreciated. Unfortunately some people are very unkind and make a point of being difficult.

Sorry OP but as crap as it is, you need to pay for allocated seats if you book with Ryanair. They usually still work out as the cheapest option when you pay the extra anyway. I definitely wouldn’t risk it with young children.

You wouldn’t want to move seats if you’d paid for the privilege of sitting with your family so there’s not much that can be done by the staff on a full flight.

A pp said about RA charging for the loo if they could. He tried it. I'm guessing as it was 15 years ago, nowt came of it.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2009/mar/05/ryanair-toilet-charge

You should have paid to pre book seats when making the booking. Yes, it’s not ideal but it’s how Ryanair work and it’s not like it’s a new thing. YABU expecting other passengers to move to accommodate you.

Didn't know this. But isn't the guidance the same irrespective of CAA or EASA?

If a child travels with an accompanying adult in the same class of cabin, the

child should be seated in the same seat row segment as the accompanying adult. Where this is
not possible, the child should be seated no more than one seat row or aisle away.