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.

But Ryanair knew you had children when allocating the seats, so why didn't they put the children with an adult? We used to fly with them regularly, never paid the extra (we fly with them because they are affordable) and they always put the DCs next to one of us.

Unless they have changed the way they do things, definitely complain! Your poor kids.......

The 100per cent!

What pisses me off about parents in these situations is you all want all of the get out clauses while simultaneously claiming to know I all. Make your mind up, are you all knowing or completely clueless? You can't have it both ways. Also, keep your kids quiet. Thanks.

You have to pay to sit together on ryanair when u check in there is an option to change seats right up until the day you fly. With easyjet it automatically puts you with children under 12 I think. It should have been sorted at the arrivals not on the plane as u do have to pay so they where wrong to tell you otherwise

I genuinely think the law needs to be tightened up on companies doing it. Its not safe, and it's not fair to other passengers, and everyone knows they do it on purpose. Its not hard to seat young children with a parent, and their overt refusal to do so without additional charges essentially means they are falsely advertising the price of flying with them imho.

That is terrible and your last sentence sums it up

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.

They ought to build it into the price (like airlines always used to) so that consumers have true visibility of the actual price of the flight including necessary things like children being seated with a parent/adult from the same booking.

Plenty of other airlines manage to do it without this issue. Ryanair actively promote themselves as fucking people over, i don't know why anyone flies with them.

So I paid extra on Ryanair so me and my young son could sit together, got to the gate and they told me it was no longer valid as it was now a different plane!! One woman got split from her foster child despite her paying and saying it was a safeguarding issue!! Dreadful money grabbers. Other airlines generally you book together you sit near each other.

Why didn't you get your 4 yr old to swap with your 9 Yr old? Also book seats in future.

I mean, Ryanair is shit. They're very uncomfortable. And there is often a delay.

TUI are useless aswell. They cancelled the last two flights that I booked with them.

This is why I try to go to Europe by Eurostar now. Much better experience!

It’s so obvious. Just pay and pre book the seats.
I just don’t understand why people don’t understand it’s menu pricing now.
Do you want hold luggage
Do you want seats next to each other
Do you want front seats and first off plane
Do you want extra hand luggage

It keeps the base price down for people who don’t want any of the above. You then pay for the extras you want. You didn’t and got their policy of seat allocation.

Indeed! On my recent Ryanair flights it was quite obvious that most hadn’t paid as couples /groups queuing together were all then seated separately. I disagree with the policy of making people pay to sit together! But my family are all adults now so it’s no problem for us to sit separately on a shortish flight. If it was long haul I would pay.

@YourLastNerve I totally agree with you. It's really horrible to purposefully split families up like that and seat young children away from their parents. At least easyjet put groups together where they can.

Ryanair mess up their own policies all the time and it shouldn't be the clients responsibility to sort out. The other day I flew with them and I had a lap infant and they assigned me an emergency exit row which isn't allowed and had to swap me. Same happened to my friend. Found it really stressful. I'd rather not fly with them but they go from the local airport.

Generally people book seats at the time of booking the flight, you don't need to wait til check in to do it.

TUI definitely give you the option at the time of booking. The travel agent should have asked you if you wanted to book seats, seems like an oversight on their part.

I agree, Ryan air are totally shite (and always have been) and I for one will be avoiding them in the future.

That said, last time we travelled, I was automatically booked in next to my youngest DS. I didn’t pay extra to reserve seats for the eldest two as they weren’t bothered - on both flights they were split up, as were all other travellers who didn’t pay the extra.

The scratch card thing is ridiculous - almost embarrassing for them.

Then patronize those other airlines?

Do you think a human being is allocating the seats?

An automatic system does it.

Everyone knows that Ryanair is shit and awful, and a bad experience

They are the budget airline of the budget airlines.

You get what you pay for. They're a cheap no frills experience.

If you want a better experience, you have to pay a bit more.

📢 just book seats together 📢

Seriously, you have young kids so just ensure you're together by spending the extra few pounds and booking seats together. It's no one else's fault if you're a cheap arse.

So you didn't pay for seats together but expect other people who did to move to accommodate your family. You are being unreasonable

Young children absolutely should be put next to parents at booking, automatically, without additional charge. I am surprised that this isn’t a legal requirement. What do people think would happen in an emergency when the plane needs evacuated fast? Parents would absolutely go for their children blocking the aisle rather than escaping. That would put all passengers at risk.

It's a lottery with seating, sometimes even if you've paid.

Is it worth paying extra for insurance when you check out, is the ticket not already insured?

You pay to reserve seats together if that is important to you. How can they guarantee a child will be sat by an adult if lots of other passengers have reserved seats and there are no two available seats together? Your attitude comes across as you have saved money, not paying to reserve seats, assuming other people would move to accommodate you or Ryanair staff would sort it out.

I think a lot of the mean girls on here who are roaring “pay for a seat” don’t fly with kids under 12 and therefore don’t understand the situation! She would have paid for seats - you HAVE to with Ryanair. Children get free seats but they must be in designated “included” rows and parents are automatically charged for a seat in that row - for 3 kids both parents would have automatically paid for seats.

The problem lies in that the seats you pay for are in specific rows and if those rows sell out you have to pay the difference to upgrade the adult seats but the kids lose their free seats entirely so you have to pay full whack for their seats too. It’s a terrible system, effectively charging you twice for seats if they’re not reserved early enough. I suspect OP didn’t understand what to do or booked too late when they “included” rows were already booked.

I am flying to Spain in 2 weeks on a full flight - there were not 3 seats left together in “included” rows, only in the most expensive rows so we would have been paying again for seats we already paid for to sit together. I booked my partner and toddler together in the “included” seating rows (hers free, his included in the mandatory charge for parent seats) - I am sat two rows apart on the aisle in a more expensive seat. I will ask the solo traveller on the aisle if they want to swap but if they don’t it’s not an issue as my partner usually leaves me deal with my toddler on flights while he snoozes and she is hard work on flights lol (may secretly be hoping for one of you mean girls to be on the end to say no so I can read for 3 hours).

How can they guarantee a child will be sat by an adult if lots of other passengers have reserved seats and there are no two available seats together?
If there are two seat together when booking then these should be allocated, if not then they shouldn’t be able to book on the plane.