Ryanair - do you get seated with your family if you book the most basic tickets?

[Fivemoreminutes1]

We’ve got the cheapest of the cheap tickets - no selection of seat beforehand and they get allocated to us when we turn up at the airport. When we had the option to pay extra for seat selection, it warned us that if we didn’t cough up we most likely wouldn’t be sitting together. Just wondering whether they really do that though.

No.
You don’t get seated with the rest of your family.

Children have to be seated with an adult but others I feel they deliberately split up.

@LightDrizzle Thanks. That means I get 2.5 hours of peace and quiet!

Yes, they do. They deliberately split you up. They talk about the weight balance of the plane!

And children sitting ‘with’ adults can be interpreted fairly loosely.

However, we didn't pay to choose our seats and ended up with extra leg room because they were the ones that were left. We ended up behind each other but so were the couple next to us, so we swapped!

They separate on purpose. Easyjet font and if you do online check in as soon as it opens 40 days before you are likely to be seated together.

But ryanair separate on purpose.

Under 12 have to be seated with an adult

You check in online 24 hours before the flight and they allocate you seats then. If you check in together and do it as quickly as possible when check in opens you may get seats together. If you wait too long you'll get whatever's left.

No they don't. They only allocate when you check in 24 hours before so you get what's left. They allocate together IF there are seats together but by that point there usually aren't.

With is next to, in front or behind or across the aisle from.

So why did my family of three get separated on check in, even though one of them was allocated the middle seat on an empty row? Why not allocate all three to that row?

Why did my friendship group of four get allocated seats across about 10 rows, even though the plane was a third full and they all just moved to an empty row mid flight?

They absoloutley do not allocate seats together, when it is possible to do so, because they want to make a point.

I just flew with Ryanair with my 13 yr old. We were allocated separate seats on both flights - 3/4 rows apart.
It felt deliberate as my DC was on a row on their own so they could’ve allocated me next to them surely…

We booked recently and were sitting together both ways, we didn't select those seats. Was pleasantly surprised!

Utter rubbish!
There is no ‘deliberate’ about it - people who don’t book seats get put wherever there are free seats. On a full plane it’s highly likely that the free sheets will be singles.
Last time I flew Ryanair, it was a 3 x 3 seating arrangement. We (4 of us) were sat in a row together plus the seat on the opposite row. The other 2 seats were occupied by two extremely large people who I’d guess weighed well over the combined weight of us four. If they were doing weight distribution, the heavy couple should have been seated on opposite sides of the plane 😂

Or you could have just sat next to them?

We always book seats but we left it a bit late last time and had a 2 a 3 and a 1 (just behind us)
We were quite close to each other but we noticed that the people around us who hadn’t booked seats had been split up in a way that seemed so odd it was probably deliberate.

Eh? Don’t be daft.

We’ll, that’s what we did obviously 🙄

They only allocate when you check in 24 hours before so you get what's left. They allocate together IF there are seats together but by that point there usually aren't.

Not true. DH and I checked in a few hours before a flight back from Netherlands. We were both allocated a middle seat several rows apart. We both had the whole row to ourselves 🤷🏼‍♀️ They say it's for weight distribution of flight but it feels intentional with Ryanair as people are allowed to move to sit with their partner after take off.

If you want to guarantee you wont be sat with family then don't book seats. I think it's really cheeky as they could just fill the plane up and sit people that check in together, together.

I've no experience of this but it certainly make financial sense for Ryanair to purposely split people up, as that means next time they fly, the affected passengers would pay Ryanair the premium to buy seats together (which is money for nothing, since it costs no more to seat people together, than it is to seat them separately). It's very clever. Once word gets out, lots will pay the premium.

The system is, it seems, set up to ensure you don’t get seated together. If you want to sit next to your family, you need to pay for seats.

Ryanair have a very deliberate policy to split groups travelling together up these days to make sure they gouge every penny possible from customers and that people do pay to sit together.

A few years ago this wasn't the case - we used to travel in a family group of 8: 5 adults and 3 kids and it was never any bother to have at least one adult sitting next to a child, on any airline even Ryanair, without paying extra, and most commonly we'd be in twos and threes and spread over two rows next to one another.

If it's a very cheap flight I don't mind paying an extra few quid to reserve a seat. But in the summer holidays flights can be expensive and if it's another hundred quid plus just to sit together then we don't bother now (DDs are teenagers) and we are happy to swap with any hapless families with younger children getting caught up in this.

Yes they really do do that. They are a business it's how they force people to pay extra to choose their seats.

Two of us flew on a quarter full plane.. and were sat in opposite ends of the plane! Seems deliberate to me! EasyJet sit you together in my experience 😊