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.

Disgusting to make a 4 year old sit with strangers.

If you dont pay for seats they always split you up.

Why should others that have pre paid for their seats have to move to accommodate you?

And their sibling, who they were sitting with.

It's not the responsibility of people in booked and prepaid seats.

And if the parents were really that bothered one of them would have sat with the youngest kid

Noone is trying to move people who have paid for a chosen seat, the issue we have is that they are deliberately spitting up groups just to squeeze extra money out of people.

They do squeeze money out of people. If you don't mind sitting apart it's super cheap. The costs come when you make choices.

Noone is trying to move people who have paid for a chosen seat, the issue we have is that they are deliberately spitting up groups just to squeeze extra money out of people.

We all know that.

That's what they do so that they can make money and then they can offer flights to Barcelona for £19. That's their business model.

Yeah this. You always get dicks on AIBU jumping on and saying it's your own fault you should have paid to select seats but why? I never pay to select seats because we don't care where we sit as long as a child is near an adult (and yes across the aisle or one row in front or behind is fine for us) so since it's in their bloody T & C's why should we pay an extra £120 or whatever it is for us to be in the same situation we should be anyway??

Well because this poster just wants an argument I guess.

You clearly didn't pay the extra to get seating together. It's worth the little bit extra with young DC. DH and I don't bother because it's just us but with a DC I would.

Why where the tickets not booked so you can sit together it is an option on the website sorry but ryanair do not book your plane tickers so have no way of knowing you want to sit together unless tickets are booked tondit together

I don't have much sympathy here. Just pay and book seats together, everyone knows Ryanair deliberately splits groups up so they can earn more money, it is what it is - Just pay to sit together like everyone else does.
More so because the people you asked to swap seats had probably already paid to sit with their families and you're asking them to move to accommodate you, when you didn't pay. Yes it's a shitty policy from Ryanair, but that's Ryanair for you.

Why didn't you pay?

Ryanair offers a cheap base rate that doesn't make a profit for them, so of course they're going to split people up to encourage them to buy the add ons. If you book with a child you're supposed to pay for and reserve a seat which entitles you to a free reserved seat for your child to sit with you. What should happen is that if you don't do that the booking shouldn't proceed.

The whole plane would have cheered as you and your family got escorted off!

Why should everyone else have to suffer because the OP was trying to save a few bucks by not booking her seat?

It's very very very clear when booking that you have to pay to book a seat. In fact annoyingly so, you get asked at least 3 times!

All the faux innocence on these type of threads is complete bullshit, no way do people not know. They're CF of the highest order expecting someone who has paid to move their seats. And it is quite clear when booking that an adult HAS to pay to book a seat to get the child sitting next to them.

Well said, @TodayandThursday

Nope you're wrong here. It's the airlines fault. Obviously people who have paid to sit together should never be expected to move but it should never have come to anywhere near that stage anyway because the law says kids under 12 need to be seated near their adult for safely purposes. Ryanair knows the age of each person booking so it should be automatically allocated at the time of booking. Sure, if you're a family of 4 or 5 or whatever they'll split you up but the kid should be with an adult and that's that. (Yes maybe across the aisle or in front or behind or whatever but not halfway across the plane)
So all those people getting huffy and saying the OP is the one in the wrong should be angry with Ryanair not people who expect an airline to do what they're meant to be bloody doing anyway!

Totally agree. I wouldn't have cheered to watch a family treated like this at all. Far from it! I would have joined them in making a fuss!

because the law says kids under 12 need to be seated near their adult for safely purposes

Which law is that please?

The law of mumsnet. Where jury decisions are made via an aibu vote 😂

Q: If a random 4yo child is seated next to you, would you help them with an emergency mask in the event of a depressurisation?

CAA guidance

www.caa.co.uk/passengers-and-public/before-you-fly/making-a-booking/airline-seating-allocations/

Families, children and infants
The seating of children close by their parents or guardians should be the aim of airline seat allocation procedures for family groups and large parties of children.
Young children and infants who are accompanied by adults should ideally be seated in the same seat row as the adult. Where this is not possible, children should be separated by no more than one seat row from accompanying adults. This is because the speed of an emergency evacuation may be affected by adults trying to reach their children.
Whenever a number of infants and children are travelling together the airline should make every effort to ensure that they can be readily supervised by the responsible accompanying adults.

As has been mentioned numerous times already CAA guidance is just that, guidelines and is not legally binding in the UK.

Obviously people who have paid to sit together should never be expected to move but it should never have come to anywhere near that stage anyway because the law says kids under 12 need to be seated near their adult for safely purposes.

Again there is no such law in the UK only CAA guidelines which are merely guidelines.

Agreed, and also “should” does not create an imperative, “must” does…and the CAA use “should.”

As I mentioned way back (I think, might have been in the parallel thread) there’s a real danger people are going to get themselves in poo standing up for their rights when they actually don’t know their rights.