Paid for seats on ryan air and kids still sat separately

[Hookahchakkah]

Has anyone had any success getting a refund and compensati on.? We paid the extra to ensure we were with the kids all together and they sat all four of us completely separately, not even across an aisle or one row away like five and twenty five rows away from each other

But what about children who have to fly completely alone as unaccompanied minors? Is that a safeguarding issue? Should it be banned? 11 years olds often get public transport to school alone. Is that a safeguarding issue as well?

BBC breakfast doing a piece on this today. Contact them they may air your problem.

I imagine that one of the reasons against splitting parents from children is that in an emergency, those parents are going to instinctively make their way to their children, possibly against the flow of everyone else trying to get off the aircraft?

Correct, it's one factor that gets a mention in places like the UK Civil Aviation Authority guidance to airlines on passenger seat..but in the UK case the authorities offer the info as guidance, not as a set of rules.

The issue here is perhaps consent.

Unaccompanied minors could be a safeguarding issue. It is a bit of a historical throwback. However, parents/guardians will have given their permission for this and air crew will be aware - it should be flagged on their boarding pass, just as anyone with a disability or mobility issues is flagged on their boarding pass. Even the crew in this instance knew that a family of 4 was being split.
The difference lies in that the family here did not give their consent.

Travelling to school on public transport is an interesting one. I don’t know if bus drivers have to have a DBS or PVG. They probably do on school coaches now. Everything is being tightened up. Football coaches, talent scouts etc all have to be checked now because they have “influence”. There is a growing recognition that you don’t have to physically do something to someone to cause them harm.

Back to Ryanair. They have a duty of care to ensure travellers are safe. Arguably sitting a child or vulnerable adult next to some random for a number of hours does not guarantee that. They are supposedly providing a service and therefore have responsibilities. But it is Ryanair and well …

Ryanair does not permit unaccompanied minors. Those airlines who do have very clear policies and procedures, precisely because of the potential safeguarding implications.

School public transport generally doesn’t involve crossing borders.

I am amazed people didn't want to swap seats. Being sat next to someone else's lone child on a flight is not ideal

Hope you get decent compensation but I wouldn't hold my breath

I'd be wary of assumimg safeguarding regulations automatically apply here...

They may well do, I don't know, but FWIW a lot of legislation that applies to ground based activities doesn't apply at times in the aviation industry (e.g. some facets of H&S regulation), or is embedded in a modified form in industry specific legislation..

Unaccompanied minors are pretty much the definition of a potential safeguarding issue. That’s why some airlines don’t permit them at all, and why it is a service which costs more on those that do.

The previous poster has made the very common MN mistake of thinking that ‘safeguarding’ is a synonym for ‘safety’. I can’t believe how many people don’t understand the difference tbh. A ten-year-old sitting away from their parents on the same flight might be a safety issue depending on the circumstances. It is not a safeguarding issue.

@sposabagnata

The previous poster has made the very common MN mistake of thinking that ‘safeguarding’ is a synonym for ‘safety’.

If you are referring to me, no I don't.

Just to be clear I was pointing out you can't assume all the legislation people are used to dealing with in day to day life (school, buses etc) automatically applies everywhere,.and I was using H&S as one example.

I wasn’t. You can follow the quote thread to see the post I had in mind.

The simplest answer here is, you make sure you or your husband is sitting next to the ten year old. Fair enough you made a snap decision when you got on board, but that could have easily been changed once the plane was in the air.

There is a reason they board families first. Being so late to the gate you were being rushed to sit down was the issue here.

Actively trying to help a disabled passenger to the point he has to be adamant he doesn’t need help is not a good thing and shows a lack of training.

I bought a chicken sandwich on Ryanair a few months ago. Paid for it etc and then she started taking the next order … a few minutes later they were heading off down the plane so I got their attention and said we hadn’t received my chicken sandwich yet. She looked in the trolly and said “we don’t have any left now, do you want bacon instead?” No fucking apology. I was livid.

It happened to me once that I paid for front seats but they were changed before boarding. I was told to fill in forms online and after endless calls and emails for weeks, the claim for a refund was denied. £120 down the drain.

Ryanair claim there's something in their small print that says they can sell you a chosen seat but you may not get that seat if it doesn't suit them. But we already know they are immoral.

Ryanair claim there's something in their small print that says they can sell you a chosen seat but you may not get that seat if it doesn't suit them. But we already know they are immoral

I think TBF for reasons various the airline (all airlines) have to retain the option to move people from their selected seat...

Where it gets immoral, or at least.down right wrong,.is if they move people and then make it difficult to impossible to get a refund of any seat chouce fee that has been paid

I voted YABU because you chose Ryanair.
They’re a bunch of crooks and nobody should fly with them, ever!

This happened to my boss. We booked a business flight from London to Madrid and they changed planes and sat him in economy. They actually sent us an email informing us that as he had been demoted we had a right to be reimbursed for the difference. Well, I put the claim in and they first said that as it was booked through and agency, the agency had to claim. This was months down the line, so we did that, and then months later they told the agency that "seat 14F was a business seat so service paid for had been provided". We are still laughing. 14F a business seat. Right. We claimed again providing proof that 14F is economy, and they have ignored us. That is BA for you now. Shite.

I've defended Ryanair (and other low cost carriers) over the years on the grounds of so long as you stick to the rules, especially about luggage, they are fine - get you from A-B and often at very good fares. When I was a younger single parent the LCCs enabled me and DS to travel to cities probably unaffordable otherwise.

However... I'm currently in dispute with Ryanair myself. They have cancelled the return part of a flight in December. I discussed with their call centre and agreed to rebook myself on another airline for the original date as Ryanair don't have another flight that day and I need to return for work reasons. Booked an alternative flight (still relatively low cost at £80 and just me travelling) but Ryanair are now refusing to refund! It's taking so much time I was tempted to write it off but am now digging my heels and fighting them because there is no ambiguity in the regs, yet they're still tring to wriggle out of it.

Its true that you only get the measure of an organisation in how they deal with a problem, and this has been a wake-up call for me with Ryanair - all for £80, which they are obliged to refund! I doubt I'll ever book with them again.

Honestly Ryanair are just awful. You absolutely should get compensation, but I expect they will do everything they can to wiggle out of paying it. I haven’t flown with them since 1998 when they double charged me and refused to refund me. Back then the ‘customer service’ phone service was a premium rate number as well.

Same here, I’ve always said you get what you pay (very little) for, and if what you need is to get from A to B on time, which they’re pretty good at, don’t care where you sit and don’t need to carry much baggage, they’re great.

BUT, they do muck about with their baggage sizes and they do it to catch people out. I got stung for £60 because the cabin bag I’d used on multiple Ryanair flights including one only a few weeks earlier suddenly didn’t fit in their sizer. My fault for not checking, I know.

I’d have felt less aggrieved if they’d applied their policy consistently but from what I observed they were blatantly profiling, targeting older passengers who were less likely to make a fuss. And now we know from Michael O’Leary they’re incentivised to do so. It stinks.

That's not on @prelovedusername if they've reduced the sizer that your bag has previously fit. I thought I'd heard something about bag size allowance actually increasing.

Its an extra faff, but might be worth packing a small tape measure in future if you know your bag is the right size (I've done this previously, ready to show bags are compliant, although never actually been pulled - yet!).

With the apparent staff incentivisation I agree they'll pick the easy targets first. 😡

They’ve increased the cabin bag allowance very recently, it’s now back to more or less what it was before the last decrease. We fly several times a year with Ryanair and have the various sized bags to prove it! My issue isn’t the charges for larger bags but the frequency and lack of transparency when they make changes.

There should be a standard size of cabin bag for each type of aircraft, regardless of the airline. Any changes to baggage charges should have to give at least 12 months notice, so almost no chance of changing after you book.

No ifs no buts, if an airline fails to comply, they lose the slot.

I think you'll find Ryanair have said they will be changing the size of the cabin bags when their sizers have been upgraded so don't expect it to happen until you've seen an official Ryanair announcement. They've also said they're increasing bonuses for those staff who 'catch passengers out' with bigger bags so expect many more extra charges at the moment.