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 didn’t book seats for such a big party together? If everyone else booked why should they be expected to move?
ryanair is cheap airline everyone knows that so don’t expect a fabulous service

You said "you have to pay for seats with Ryanair".

You don't have to pay for seats with ryanair.

When you buy a ticket you are given a choice.

It's says clearly that you can

"not pay for seats, if you do this, you will be seated randomly By ryanair"

Or You can choose to

"Pay for the seats that you want"

You are told this several times when you book.

OP chose not to pay so she was seated randomly.

My DS & his 3 friends were severely delayed on a return Ryanair flight last year. Didn’t get home till 24 hours later than they should have. Never received the compensation they were legally entitled to. As 18 yr olds with little experience dealing with customer services they gave up after a few months of getting nowhere with them. Still annoys me that Ryanair got away with it!

But surely you've just proved the point that people are making. Sensible parents pay extra to book whatever seats are needed to ensure that a child is not seated without a parent. You have booked seats for your partner and your child so that your child is not sat alone. Why couldn't the OP have done likewise?

No, they can't, unless they were prepared to compensate the person who moved of course.

Every time I have booked a seat it is in the T&Cs that your seat is not guaranteed and you could be moved by flight crew.

You are confusing paying for specific seats with sitting together. A parent and child can be randomly allocated two seats next to each other somewhere in the plane.

No I was replying to the poster who said that everyone has to pay for seats on ryanair.

I told her that is wrong.

We are given a choice to either pay or not pay for seats

Go to Bott & Co, they will get them compensation. They obviously take a cut from it but its better than nothing.

Yes you pay if you want to choose your seats or not if happy with a random allocation. And for parents and child that means if they don’t pay they are placed in a random pair of adjacent seats.

What I can't understand is how you were able to book the flight & pay without choosing seats & paying for at least one adult. I have been flying with Ryanair for a long time & was never able to even move on before selecting at least one adult seat so that I could choose seats for the rest of the booking. It states clearly that one adult must reserve a seat for children to be seated next to

If you tried that with me I’d turn to both you and your 4 year old and inform you that I wouldn’t be happy to cuddle them and I’d be more likely to be worried and screaming if I was moved from my pre booked seat away from my partner.

I’m scared of flying so I pay for extra leg room seats at the front of the plane next to DP. I like to be near the front as I can see the cabin crew just getting on with their jobs which is reassuring.
I paid £180 in June for our seats each way to Tenerife with TUI, I would have preferred not to but accept that if I want specific seating I have to reserve it.

I was asked to move from my window seat to swap for someone’s child and when I refused they kept letting them come and stand in front of my seat (I’m 4’10 so there was a gap with it being extra legroom) to look out of the window, when I asked the child who was about 5 to go and sit down I got called selfish and asked why I wanted to ruin a child’s holiday, I ignored what was obviously an attempt to intimidate me to give up my seat.

A few years ago travelling to Turkey there was a couple with a toddler already sat in the seats we paid for as they had been split up, I had to ask cabin crew to step in and help when they refused to move. It’s interesting that they chose to sit in decent seats rather than asking people further back without extra leg room to swap! They took a lot of persuading to move.

Why should I give up seats I’ve budgeted for as part of my holiday and booked in advance to suit my needs because some parents don’t want to pay and instead think they can use tactics to get people to move like telling their children a random adult would cuddle them if they felt sick?! And would you really want to encourage your child to be cuddled up with a stranger? My partner would probably wink at you if you said that to him and say “course I’ll cuddle your child” in a hope that you’d see how inappropriate that is.
Encouraging your child to scream as well is just going to piss of lots of people who absolutely don’t deserve it and who don’t need to suffer from a parent failing to prepare.

Paying for seats has been around for ages and it’s so that airlines can offer budget prices if you don’t need any extras, it’s like a pp said, it’s the same as paying for a child seat for your car if you need to. It would make sense to incorporate the seat price into the ticket price but not everyone is bothered about where they sit. It’s the same as paying for luggage, the ticket price is for the cost of travel, the rest is extras that not everyone needs and it’s the same with most airlines now.

the seats should be sorted at check-in, not at the gate or on the plane. You should have not left check-in until they sorted your seats there because once everyone has their boarding passes there isn’t much the gate or flight attendants can do

I'm astonished no one would swap with you. I would pay good money not to be sitting next to someone else's 4-year-old. Just being able to swap would seem like a bargain.

If booked with a travel agent you may not be able to change your seats as you cannot access the booking

Agree with pp - Ryanair did not make your 4 year old sit alone, you did by failing to prepare.

I've been in the position of being asked to move seats for a family who didn't feel like paying the extra. I moved, as I was travelling alone, but it pissed me off.

you need to book seats together instead of using the 'young kids should not sit away from parents' entitlement. I travel with Ryanair occasionally with 2 disabled teens. I always pay for the seats. Yes, it adds costs but that is how Ryanair works. I wouldn't be happy to give up or my teens seat that I paid for just some people who couldn't bother to do the same can sit together. I would image many people feel the same. What can the cabin crew do if people refuse to swap? This really is only on you!

Completely on you for not paying to book seats together. Of course other people didn’t want to swap, they had likely paid for their seats and viewed you as a CF. Can’t stand it when people do this and then expect staff and the other passengers to solve the problem.

Im sure every passenger who paid to choose their seat thought the quote
“your poor planning does not constitute as my emergency”

Entitled parents strike again because they decided to procreate

Why didn’t you pay to select your seats in advance?

This. How revolting I would have complained as not prepared to look after a vomiting child that is not my own.

If you travel with an under 12 child their seat is free but the adult HAS to pay for a seat, there is no choice (they changed the rules about a year or two ago so it’s an automatic charge) - if you look at the breakdown of costs the “included” seat tends to costs £8/10 - when you are asked if you want to book a seat it then shows what rows are included (ie what you’ve already been charged for) and the price variation if you go for a more expensive row but is you go for a different row your child no longer qualifies for a free seat and must pay full price in the new row. OP HAD to pay - as they had 3 kids both adults would have had the extra seat charge added but the seats together were obviously gone or the included rows were gone. It is a silly system!

The days of chancing your arm and not paying to sit with kids are gone - you get charged automatically when you book so Ryanair should have provided them with seats and should refund the fee they already took to sit together!

But they would have had to pay for all the adults seats regardless - you HAVE to pay for adult seats when travelling with kids, it’s automatically added and then when you get to seat booking it shows which rows your PAID seat can be chosen from! We would have paid anyway but we couldn’t opt out. Ryanair changed their booking terms a year or two ago to make if mandatory for a parent to pay for a seat if travelling with a child.

I wouldn't fly with these budget airlines. They are the total pits. Why didn't you pay to reserve your seats.

But they shouldn't have to pay more than other passengers just to fulfil Civil Aviation Authority rules. Ryanair used to get away with charging disabled passengers for assistance until they were pulled up on it.

Why didn’t you book seats together when you bought your tickets?