Ryanair seating policy for kids

[Jonas25]

Checked in for flight and found I am sitting 1 row back from my 5-year old and opposite sides of the aisle. I had assumed Ryanair would have to sit an accompanying adult next to a minor but I have now read that they are forcing you to reserve a seat if travelling with a minor. I was not 'forced' to reserve a seat and actually did not know anything about this new policy until after check in and a quick Google. How do I stand legally?

Always remember a flight when the announcement came asking for someone to move so a lad ( not tiny) could sit with his family, I mentioned to the woman next to me that they were cheeky not paying for seats if wanting to sit together as I had to pay to sit next to my dc, it was her grandson! I did not backtrack but she stopped speaking to me, which was a bonus

I always pay for my seat as I have a weird hip and I need an aisle seat. I would not swap because you are too tight to pay for your own. If you want to sit together pay more to go on a premium airline or pre-book. You know the deal with a budget

Exactly. There is a time and a place. If travelling alone with no cases etc. You don't have to pay any more. That's why you bolt on what you want and suits you

@RudsyFarmer

It’s so obviously a cash grab and the fact that so many of you are so happy to play the game alongside ALL the industries that stealth tax you is laughable.

Did you even bother reading and digesting my pp re-profits per average passenger (which applies to almost all airlines these days) or are you just determined to blindly jump on the "cash grab"/"stealth tax" / "being gouged" band wagon?

Get rid of the seat fee and the equivalent amount of money, give or take, will be extracted from somewhere else in the transaction.

We are flying today and have paid to reserve seats to travel as a family. 3 of us in one row and 2 in another. I wouldnt swap with anyone if asked. We have booked together for a reason.

Hopefully either your child Will be fine sitting alone, or someone will swap with you if asked.

Its definitely not a risk I would take when going away. Whether or not I agree with the extra charge, it is there and if sitting apart is potentially an issue, then I think it needs to be paid for the peace of mind.

Thank you for the moderate reply. The end result was that there was a number of families deliberately split up so we all played musical chairs and came up with a more sensible arrangement. Nobody was inconvenienced.

You might not get to swap seats, I flew RA last month and we were told on the return flight no one was to seat swap due to weight.

Can I ask a genuine question? How do they figure out the weight distribution? Do they have a formula?

I weigh more than DH.
Slender teen DD weighs more than her anorexic Grandmother etc.

I have no idea! I also wonder how they do it as it's not like you put your weight in when you book!

Exactly.

This is surely an excuse to prevent seat swaps. There is no way they can know peoples wights.

YY the weight thing is such rubbish! I know that they have to balance passenger numbers but they aren't working out weights of individual passengers other than perhaps an adult vs child average weight.

And yes I do agree/understand that Ryanair's business model is to strip out all the extras which are usually included in the flight cost, and let you decide whether or not to pay for them separately, and TBH this makes sense for things like the in-flight meal, baggage, entertainment, being able to choose a specific seat and so on.

Interesting that Ryanair fill up all the middle seats first - this makes more sense, and would fit both the "they deliberately put people on different rows" theory AND the "computers allocate in a predictable format" theory.

I do still think it is a bit shitty given that they didn't do that before 2016, and other airlines don't do it - most airlines still seem to stick to the "in order, but together if there's space" format for unreserved seating. But I can see that it probably does maximise their possible profit on that specific sales point of reserving seats. Hmm.

It may well be an excuse but TBH there's a slim chance they might have been telling the truth but not explaining it very well.

Whilst not knowing exactly how Ryanair do their trim and balance it's quite possible they might do what many other airlines do - use what are known as assumed weights ( numbers agreed with the regulator) for male/female/children when doing their load and balance calculations...

That allows the people who do the load and dispatch to work out from the number of male/females/children in each seat row where the aircraft's centre of gravity, or balance point is positioned, which is something it's important to know from a loading and flying POV.

The balance point must not be to far forwards or to far aft so if it turns out when the numbers are crunched the centre of gravity is very near one of the limits then you can't have (if any) swapping between seat rows.

Why? Because if you're very close but inside a loading limit and then there's a significant move in weight- e.g. 3 adult blokes swap from row 1 and go to row 25 and 3 children switch with them and go the other way there's just a chance, in extremis, you might then move the centre of gravity outside the limits.

So long story short, you can't rule the explanation out completely, it's a rare situation but it is credible, and I know it's something that has happened on flights at airlines other than Ryanair.

Bit of a long post but HTH.

@BertieBotts

YY the weight thing is such rubbish! I know that they have to balance passenger numbers but they aren't working out weights of individual passengers other than perhaps an adult vs child average weight.

Hi

Sounds like you have a bit of knowledge on this but you might want to have a look at my pp before poo poo'ing the idea completely.

Using assumed passenger weights to calculate a total assumed weight for each row, and then summing each weight and row position fore and aft from a defined datum (it's back to basic Physics like moment arms etc) to calculate the effect on overall Centre of Gravity is very definitely a technique used by the despatch teams at many airlines.

Never had the "don't move" issue on a long haul aircraft but I have seen it happen on a few occasions on short haul flights so , as I said in the pp, the idea is not complete rubbish...now whether Ryanair use that technique and whether it was the reason for the request on the flight in question I obviously don't know.

That makes a certain sense to me @notimagain - I fly home with Ryanair several times a year (because they're the only airline who go from my nearest UK airport to my nearest home town airport) and we've always noticed that when you book with children you are far more likely to be allocated seats in the rear of the plane. I did wonder before why children were always put in the back rows. An allocated weight theory may well be the reason.

I flew Ryanair with my 7 yo earlier this year and sure that I had a free seat reservation to be able to select for her to sit with me. As per the rules. It was a massive muddle to work my way through everything though!

The weight thing with Ryanair isn't rubbish. I worked for them a few years ago before they brought in allocated seating. For flights with low passenger loads we had to block off so many rows (from memory it was something like the first 6 and last 4) due to balancing the aircraft. Those that flew with them regularly might remember that rows 3+4 used to be blocked off for most flights (we used to only be allowed to use these rows if loads were more than 177 (max capacity back then was 189). Whilst I've been left over 10 years and I have no idea of current operating procedures I would be shocked if they'd suddenly gone lax in recent years when I remember how strict they were back then.

This is surely an excuse to prevent seat swaps. There is no way they can know peoples wights.

You must be a conspiracy theorists dream.

Also, you can estimate a five year old weighs less than a grown man.

I have been on a plane that the aircrew had to rebalance... lots of empty seats but a lot more on the left than the right, so they moved people over.

And asked that everyone was in their allocated seat on landing if they moved during the flight.

It's been a few years since my youngest turned 16 but when I few Ryan air before she was 16, seat reservations for bookings were half price if there was an under 16 on the booking, did they stop that? Or are people just not aware? I thought it was fine (then it was £6 per seat to reserve so at half price £9 for the 3 of us each way)

Just for info, and perhaps persuade any non-believers that pesky weight distribution/centre of gravity thing can even catch you out on the ground if you screw things up badly enough…..

https://nypost.com/2023/10/23/shocking-images-show-jetblue-plane-popping-a-wheelie-at-jfk/

To clarify, I'm not saying that planes never weight balance because obviously they do. I know! I didn't say that they don't do that.

What I mean is surely refusing seat swapping on the basis of weight balancing makes no sense.

If they've done their calculation with adult X in row 18 and adult Y in row 3, then it makes no difference to their calculation if adult X and Y swap places.

Of course they can ban seat swapping just because it's a hassle or for whatever reason they like. But this is the part that I'm saying is rubbish, not that they do it at all.

I can see from your explanation that probably what happens is that it's rare that a single adult wants to swap with a single other adult and so maybe it's easier for them to just say no seat swapping for balancing reasons, even though that's a large oversimplification, rather than explaining the exact parameters which is just going to cause even more confusion and delay.