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.

Sure, your money is more important than a 4 year old's well being.....not horrible in the slightest.....

I've had this problem. I DID book seats for my family and I to sit together - then Ryanair changed the aircraft, booted my 4 year old out of her seat and stuck her up the other end of the aeroplane.

Online chat, check in and cabin crew were entirely unhelpful. Fortunately the woman sitting next to said 4 year old was very nice and probably didn't want to entertain a pre schooler for 2 hours (fair enough) so swapped with DH.

So yeah... Paying for a seat wasn't very helpful in our situation

Exactly.

Blaming the airline and other passengers is absurd.

She wants to sit with her own children, not exactly unreasonable

As PP said if you want to have passengers swap for seats they paid for you need to pay them

This - 100% the strategy is to ensure you pay the extra seat fee next time / they are mercenary but they offer low cost flights and giving customers the seat options if you want to pay. I would never leave it to chance that they would fulfil their policy, I'm just too cynical! Sorry you had such a terrible time OP ❤️

Maybe if the kid's own parents had cared enough to avail of the FREE child seat they were offered but didn't buy then randomers wouldn't have to give up seats they had bothered to pay for .....
Your comments are misplaced.

For those who think Ryanair did something wrong, why not try a test booking where you put 1 adult and 1 child 2-11. The very first thing the website does is signal you to the need to pay for a reserved seat. No way did the OP not see that!

Tbh yes.

You can't expect random people to care about other people's children onlybecause their parents won't pay seating.

Yep, this thread is full of horrible people driven by the " well I've paid for my bit of the world so to hell with everyone else" attitude. Including a wee 4 year old needing to sit away from their care giver.

It certainly won't have been made clear to you in 2009, because you couldn't pay for a seat on Ryanair until 2011. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/apr/19/ryanair-to-charge-seat-reservations-airline

A need the care giver could have chosen to pay to be met.

Really we can't expect people to care about 4 year old kids' well being? Jeezo, this is really sad. Hope they're not parents themselves then with that attitude.

Ryanair deliberately seat members of the same party apart in the hope of getting more money out of you! It’s the only airline I have ever flown with that my companion(s) have been completely separated!

DD (19) & I flew Ryanair recently for a cheap city break. We weren’t bothered enough to pay to pre book. & when we did online check in were allocated seats several rows apart. Despite the fact that there were still seats available together! The row across from me had 2 empty seats.

To seat small children away from their parents is ridiculous & just disgusting greed & would put me off flying with any airline that do this! We used to fly as a family of 5 & were always seated together and never paid extra for this.

Do Ryanair have a bunch of their PR with MN accounts or something? This thread is so pathetic in parts.

'My money: your problem so fuck off'

Very depressing.....

"Ryan Air made 4 year old sit alone" isn't an accurate headline as they were actually sitting with a sibling? And then why didn't a parent sit with the 4 year old and move the 7 year old?

You have to pay to sit together.

Are you suggesting that the poster who paid to be sat with her children (that you don't know the ages of btw) should relocate herself or her children to accommodate people who couldn't be bothered/too tight to pay? That's crazy.

Ryanair ask you twice in the booking process if you want to book seats together AND they state if you don't book seats you will be randomly allocated seats AND you then have to tick a box saying you are happy with randomly allocated seats. They ask you again near the flight AND when you check in before they randomly allocate the seats.
So....

To all the people saying "Fly with a less cheap airline where you don't have to pay for your seats": DP and I took a flight in business class with Qatar Airways last year and were amazed to discover that we needed to pay $80 each if we wanted to select our seats. As it was we were going to sleep all the way and so we didn't bother, but paying to choose your seat is pretty much standard on almost every airline now.

So to continue with my test booking, I have selected seats in both directions, an all seats have cost me the enormous sum of £0.
The OP is making this up!

You are completely misinterpreting people's posts.

Why do you think a parent who paid to sit with her own children should give up her seat (and be labeled a horrible person for refusing)? What about her poor little 4 year old?

I pay for an aisle seat as I have a medical condition that means I might need prompt access to a toilet. Sorry but it is very clear at the point of booking that to guarantee you are all sat together you need to pay. I would not have moved.

None of the people had a 4 year old, all the people just refusing to swop "because they paid their money". I didn't say they should leave their children. You're trying to be smart but it's not working.

The parent didn't offer to refund people their fee for a seat did they?

It’s not letting me proceed with a booking without selecting seats. The booking process prevents anyone from not selecting a seat when travelling with an under 12 child.