Flying Ryanair wth Children

Suggs · 24 May 2005 at 2:19PM

Abit of a stupid question, but I am a little worried so I will ask anyways.

Flying to Reus on Saturday with my Children, I know all about free seating and Ryanair, having flown before, but this is the first time my children will experience it.

The question is, at what age do children cease to be children for boarding first? My children are 13, 10 and 9 and I would say only slighty nervous flyers, it will be the "scrum" that may upset them more if an inconsiderate person pushes past.

If Ryanair or you think they are too old for boarding first, thats fine, I will make sure I get to Luton Airport in plenty of time to hopefully get an early boarding pass.

Thanks for your time.

Concerned Father of MK

loobs40 · 24 May 2005 at 2:45PM

You can let me know what happens as I am flying to Reus from Luton in June with our 4 kids. 17, 15, 12 ,9 !

alanrowell · 24 May 2005 at 2:50PM

Didn't think Ryanair had any policy on children - it's just a free-for-all.

polar_low_2 · 24 May 2005 at 3:35PM

alanrowell wrote:

Didn't think Ryanair had any policy on children - it's just a free-for-all.

I think there is a seating policy:

*
To ensure that all families travel at the best price and receive the best service we have introduced a number of services to make it easier for family travel:

At each airport we fly to we will preboard families travelling with young children.
*

http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/faqs.php

But i'm not sure what their defintion of 'young children' is, probably under 10 i would think.

evesham1988la · 24 May 2005 at 3:35PM

Ryanair do have a policy whereby families with 'young' children are allowed priority boarding. Children aged 13, 10 & 9 should definately be allowed to board first.

princess · 24 May 2005 at 11:17PM

Sorry but our experience was very different from this. People with very young children (ie held in arms) were allowed to board first and some people managed to sweet talk thier way into the first boarding with children up to I would guess 5 years old. They were very firm about not prioritising any child older that that. Certainly my son aged 10 and a first time flyer had to take his chances in the scrum.

Midget_Karen · 24 May 2005 at 11:56PM

When I flew RynaAir there were some very old "young" children. You didn't need a special ticket or anything, they just called you up. I'm sure I saw kids as old as yours going on. I'm sure if they don't like it the will just tell you, but I reckon they won't bother tomake a fuss. They're too busy just getting everyone on board.

Suggs · 25 May 2005 at 7:39AM

The odd thing is even their customer services dont seem to know, so I will then up early, my parents live in Luton and Im parking the car at their house,

I will ask at checkin, but more importantly I will hopefully have a early boarding pass just in case.

Thanks for your replies guys, to be fair with low cost airlines, I am not expecting much

gazza007 · 25 May 2005 at 8:20AM

I took my 8 & 10 year old for a surprise day trip to Dublin last October.
We got on first without without problems. Despite the announcement you will always get people who will ignore the rules & shove to the front. It is usually the same people who stick their heads through the baggage carousel flaps despite it being stationery.

Lucie_2 · 25 May 2005 at 10:15AM

gazza007 wrote:

It is usually the same people who stick their heads through the baggage carousel flaps despite it being stationery.

Are those the same people who have their seatbelt unbuckled & jump up to get their bag out of the overhead locker as soon as the front wheels touch the ground?

Suggs - you might want to mention your concerns at check in. Tell them that you have nervous flyers & is there anyway you can be included in the priority boarding?

budgetflyer · 25 May 2005 at 12:17PM

With a 9 year old in your family I would just go straight to the front regardless of what they say.For easyjet the age is 5-ridiculous.
Check in early just in case. At Prestwick they have a special seating area for families with young children so if its the same at your airport just plonk yourselves down there.
I certainly wouldn't mind giving up my seat next to the wife if it made the flight easier for a family.
What I have noticed the last 2 times I've flew Ryanair is the amount of selfish solo travellers who plonk themselfs in the middle seat of an empty row of 3 ,hoping to discourage anyone to sit either side.If I could have persuaded the missus, we would have sat either side of them and spent the next 2 1/2 hours passing boiled sweets ,crisps and sannies back and forth in front of them, along with me going to the toilet 10 times from my window seat :-)

Flying Ryanair wth Children

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