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.

Tell us you're an entitled fuck without telling us you're an entitled fuck

So why didn't your DH just go to the other end of the plane when your 4 year old was kicked out of their seat.

If you absolutely need to sit beside who you are flying with just pay the few pounds ffs, its a well known policy. I can think of at least half a dozen times we got abuse from strangers when my DH refused to move. Every flight we book a row of 3 seats for myself and the 2 DC (both SEN) and book DH a seat across the aisle from us. Multiple times people have gotten arsey with him that he won't move as - in their words - he's just sitting on his own. We paid extra for him to be on hand for our DC, why should he move and I have to take care of my 2 SEN DC solo on a flight because others were so entitled they thought they shouldn't have to pay and then demand his seat? He wouldn't have swapped with you in your scenario either OP.

I'm simply responding to what you actually said.

You called @Whaleandsnail6 horrible because she would not swap in this situation (because she would not want to be separated from her own children). It's there in black and white.

Another OP acting outraged and entitled, choose your seat at time of booking!! Ryanair constantly offer this on their site.
Nobody MADE a child sit alone, her stupid parents coasted this.
I've just been in 2 Ryanair flights and two of us were seated together at no extra cost.

I have booked flights with Ryanair with kids many times, and am always forced to pay a smallish amount to have one adult sit with the kids. I don't really understand how you can get through the booking process without doing this.

Unless they changed aeroplans and seating plans got messed up this doesn't make sense.

I usually find people are pretty happy to switch seats on aeroplanes as long as similar seat. And who wants to sit next to someone elses 4 year old?

Case and point. Ryanair are bastards, but also I would swap my seat to let a 4 year old sit beside their care giver I wouldn't stoop to that level too. Seems like lots would though.....meh , I just have more faith in humanity....obviously I am misguided. Ah well....

Gosh poppet had a hard day?

So...if others have paid to sit with their own children, the family that didn't pay should take priority I assume?

If you don't like having to pay to have your "bit of the world" for the duration of a flight, the solution is very simple. Don't fly with budget airlines. Everybody hates their rip off policies, but most people are not entitled enough to think they should be the exception to them.

This is how Ryan air and easy jet make money. If you want to sit together you pay per seat per flight. Same as the speedy boarder bollocks

I’d swap if the seat was like for like, but I have specific requirements due to a disability so it would depend on what seat they were offering. Every time I’ve seen people want to swap they’ve only been offering middle seats, which I can’t use.

And a lot of other Airlines!

But Ryanair trade openly and proudly on their "FuckYou Customers" policy. Michael O Leary loves to mouth off about how right he is about everything, including this.

So I voted YABU because you were: to choose to fly Ryanair and expect anything different.

Shocking experience but not surprising.

We had this exact situation with British Airways in April. Except we HAD paid to be sat together and had checked into those seats 24hrs before...then their system crashed...so everyone was reallocated random seats. Our 7 year old twins (one who has autism) were sat rows away from us and the cabin crew just wanted me to shut up and sit down for take off. It was honestly shocking that they were allowed to treat us with so little care. It's put us off travelling tbh. Extortionate prices everywhere you go but not the service to match it.

Why should you have to pay for reserved seats when legally you and your child can't sit apart? It's ridiculous that airlines get away with this
Why not?
You pay for what you need. People with children need a seat so that is part of the tariff.

People without children don't
Its like saying its ridiculous buying a child seat for the car. You have to because its a legal requirement if you a travelling with a child in your car. I dont have a child, therefore I dont have to buy a car seat.

I've had years of paying for everyone to sit together on some airlines and that was OK. It usually still worked out cheaper than going with another carrier anyway.

So you thought you’d save the money, not book seats, and force their hand to seat you together. Classic example of “f*ck around and find out” I guess. Perhaps next time you’ll pay to book seats like the rest of us do?

I have young children, and I wouldn’t have swapped seats with you either. I think it’s rude to expect others to accommodate your unwillingness to take the sensible (paid for) option.

And that was an 10 hr flight to Orlando.

OK take that one back but many, many other posters just said they wouldn't swap but not because they are sitting next to their child but because of money.

Perhaps, you could have infered from my posts that I'm not expecting someone to leave another child, given my point of being away from their care giver? But no, for some reason I want another child to be left alone?! 🙄

There are 400 odd posts now, I'm not reading the detail of every single last one of them, but also expecting too much from those on this thread to care for a 4 year old over some £££

Regardless of who did what, I think it's bonkers that any child of that age could be seated next to an unknown adult away from parents. Given some of the experiences female friends of mine have had on flights with creeps trying to stroke their legs or put hands in places they shouldn't, it's a safeguarding nightmare allowing a 4yo to sit next to a stranger like that.

Even if OP should have paid or not, it's a ridiculous policy or failing of the system if this was even able to happen. Auto-assign one adult and one child a seat together at booking, doesn't have to be near the other parent and child but a young child and adult should always be seated together and it shouldn't need to be booked specifically like this for it to be a common sense policy.

Ryanair didn’t make your child sit alone. You did, because you failed to book and pay for seats together when given the option.

So why didn't your DH just go to the other end of the plane when your 4 year old was kicked out of their seat.

Because DH was in a different row from me, 4 year old would still have been alone if they swapped.

It’s definitely not as easy as just pay for seats together with Ryan air. We booked a package holiday with love holidays. When I logged into the Ryan air site to change /look at the seats. They’d placed one of us with the kids but the other adult miles away. I tried to change it and even though there were seats available the seats kept reverting back. I tried on the app as well. Nightmare. Doesn’t seem to be anyone to speak to on the phone either

This.

And if it's mandatory then their system should take away the onus on customers to book the correct thing and just auto assign a parent and child seats together at point of transaction (the cheap seats are fine, no one is suggesting they bask in the luxury of the £19 aisle). Either it's mandatory or it's not.

I would say that's a very recent change. Before they warn you 4 times, now you can not proceed. Probably because of parents who think it doesn't apply to them and someone should swap with them causing a fuss.