Ryanair new preboarding policy

parkside_stroller

I've just done the Ryanair Glasgow Prestwick to Barcelona Reus route.
Didn't pay the £2 priority boarding surcharge as I didn't cotton on to they were not going to allow small children on as a priority - partly due to the wording on the website when I booked and partly due to me thinking that nobody could ever think that small children can take care of themselves whilst boarding, sitting on and disembarking an aircraft.

Oh and even if I had realised this was going to happen, I still couldn't have used priority booking as it seems that people with small children in a pushchair are not allowed to go for that option (you are in the same position if travelling with an infant regardless of use of a pushchair).

I'm amazed to see that priority boarding for small children is only advisory according to the Civil Aviation Authority and I can't see any explanation of the policy on this at the Irish Aviation website.

We went to the boarding gate nice and early.

We were asked for our yellow priority stickers and then allowed on first after we explained that we hadn't realised (genuinely) that we needed to pay for these. The flight was delayed so we had to go back to the departure lounge again but this time we hit problems with a guy who was determined to stick to the "rules" before being overuled himself by his colleague.

I don't have any problem sticking to the rules but this idiotic system surely needs challenged - perhaps it needs a change in the law.

It is unsafe to attempt to board small children in a scrum.

Other passengers are going to be disadvantaged when parents ask to be moved to seats where they can attend to their children (who will need their help in the event of an emergency).

I'd like to challenge Ryanair on this - does anyone have any idea where I can find information on the Irish Aviation rules as I found their website very consumer unfriendly.

Froggitt

If Ryanair cannot seat a parent with their kids, this creates a huge potential safety issue with the parent going the opposite way to the people heading for the door in the event of an emergency.

Cant they see this? Its an unsafe policy not to seat parents with their kids.

What if kids start screaming during a flight? Or are sick? Or are in pain? Some poor random passenger has do deal with this? Or a stewardess?

joebob

Flew with ryanair just recently to reus, no problem at all. had to laugh at the mad scrum to be first on the plane.why the rush to sit next to the missus? you have all holiday to be together. does not matter if your first or last you all get there at the same time. then when you land listen for the "clunk clickers" who have to be first up for there hand luggage, there still stood there 10 minutes later moaning how long it takes for the steps to come.then theres the sprint to get to the luggage lounge to be first in that queue,10 minutes later the cases start coming, there they are at the hatch waiting for there cases. cases on trolley 50 mph dash to coach barging anybody in there way. me and the missus get on the coach 10 minutes later and there they are ,sat on the first row so they can be first off to book in at the hotel. next time your at the airport look out for them mid fifties smokers high blood pressure, shiny new trainers, BOAC travel bag, called george n dorothy. you will see them theres one on every plane. Just hope there not in your hotel....

jaymac_2

I've flown with Ryanair, Easyjet and BMIbaby. I've been happy with all of them but must admit I prefer BMIbaby, simply because they allocate seats at check in. If they can do it then there doesn't seem to be any reason why the others can't.

Froggitt

Or why not allow customers to choose seats online when they book?

summersnearlyhere

Ha Joebob you made me laugh you do see them everywhere!

We've just used Ryanair to go to Dublin and we have a 10 yr old daughter. Used Ryaniar once before and was totally dismayed this year with them and half the Yorkshire folk who were sat on the plane when we boarded. We travelled from Leeds Bradford and were there nice and early and went to go through the Boarding gate and met a queue like we've never seen before. Everyone was grumbling about never seeing a queue so long. After an age all the people for our flight were told to go to the Fast Track lane and it was 15 minutes before our flight was due to leave before we got actually got through. We rushed to the plane to find that most of the seats were taken and as was mentioned earlier most couples sat with an empty seat between them? Why? I can not for the life of me understand why people should do this. The plane was fully booked and it caused absolute chaos as more and more people tried to find seats. The couples who sat across 3 seats stared ahead blankly and I was so tempted to sit in the seat in the middle of one couple just to annoy them! We had to ask two couples to move up so my husband and daughter could have the end Isle seats next to each other and I just found a seat where I could. I would never dream of hogging seats like that and it was even more infuriating as the isle was full of people standing looking around asking people to move up so they could actually have a seat.

As a family I would prefer that we 3 sat together but it's not the end of the world if at least one of us can sit next to our child. Is that too much to ask for?

As for Ryanair I hadn't realised the baggage allowance had gone down to 15 kilos and we were stung for 48 euros excess baggage on the way home much to hubby's disgust and it gave him more reasons to complain about taking too much in the first place!

If Ryanair decides to make any more changes the ideal one would be to stop couples from hogging seats and keeping the middle one free on a fully booked flight! We enjoyed the Blackstuff anyway :beer: