MSE News: 'Family tax': Dad's outrage as Ryanair tries to seat 3yo away from family

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MSE renews calls for airlines to scrap the 'family tax' as three-year-old wasn't seated near parents on a Ryanair flight...

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'Family tax': Dad's outrage as Ryanair tries to seat three-year-old away from family




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harz99

I'm not a Ryanair fan or apologist by any means, but could this simply be a case of the computer allocating seats rather than a deliberate attempt to extort extra money as is being implied.


Ryanair don't have any planes with 4 seats in a row, they are all 3+3, so a family of four is never going to sit together in one row. At best there will always either be a gangway between two seats or one row in front of another.

brewerdave

Haven't we beaten this topic to death in at least two other long threads ?????

Drav

I find this incredibly frustrating. I like MSE and generally find its articles extremely informative and its great to have a company that appears to be fighting the consumers corner, but this is creating a mountain out of a mole hill. I think Ryanair have some unfriendly policies, but I like their prices. If they didn't have these policies, they wouldn't have the prices. I don't think it at any point tries to hide its business model. If you hate the business model, fly with someone else. Or pay for allocated seating. Or simply have an adult sit alone and the other adult sit with the child(ren), unless the implication here is that Ryanair wouldn't let him do that (something I doubt).

This isn't a rose tinted point of view either, last weekend we missed a flight with Ryanair due to a stupid number of accidents on the M25. We were then quoted 100 euros each to get the next flight (which is double the original cost of the flights). We declined and missed the holiday. Is this consumer friendly of Ryanair? Probably not. Can I complain? No, I knew what I was signing up for when I bought the ticket, I should have bought insurance or left earlier to get to the airport! That right there is accepting responsibility for my own decisions, bizarre concept I know.

SewerSide

Chris was horrified to discover his three-year-old daughter, Lily, was seated a few rows away from him, his solicitor wife, and their six month-old, Harry.

Why didn't Chris just swap with Lily? Then the kids sit with their mum, and dad is only a few rows away, getting some sleep.

Credit-Crunched

Solicitor wife, glad that is sorted out.

Next on the agenda, how much is their house worth?!

redux

I've travelled several times as a single on Ryanair, once in a group of 4, and never noticed anyone behaving as though they had reserved specific seats, or reserved one myself.

Despite this, I sat where I wanted to, near the exit when I wanted to, to be nearly first out.

I'm assuming that a group that wants to sit together could probably manage it without specifying seats, though as someone points out the seating arrangement of 3 in a row means a family of 4 will probably sit 2+2

Voyager2002

redux wrote: »

I've travelled several times as a single on Ryanair, once in a group of 4, and never noticed anyone behaving as though they had reserved specific seats, or reserved one myself.

Despite this, I sat where I wanted to, near the exit when I wanted to, to be nearly first out.

I'm assuming that a group that wants to sit together could probably manage it without specifying seats, though as someone points out the seating arrangement of 3 in a row means a family of 4 will probably sit 2+2

I think you are out of date... until recently Ryanair did not allocate seats and people would just find one when they boarded, but that has now changed.

benjus

Credit-Crunched wrote: »

Solicitor wife, glad that is sorted out.

Next on the agenda, how much is their house worth?!

Don't forget that he's a policeman and they are both 33.

What a non-story. MSE is turning into the Daily Fail...

duchy

benjus wrote: »

Don't forget that he's a policeman and they are both 33.

What a non-story. MSE is turning into the Daily Fail...

Policeman didn't have the sense to sit in the single seat and seat the three year old next to Mum is a far bigger story.

It raises the question of how he is a policeman when he has absolutely no commonsense.

I wonder if his wife is a solicitor in the NWNF sector

duchy

Drav wrote: »

This isn't a rose tinted point of view either, last weekend we missed a flight with Ryanair due to a stupid number of accidents on the M25. We were then quoted 100 euros each to get the next flight (which is double the original cost of the flights). We declined and missed the holiday. Is this consumer friendly of Ryanair? Probably not. Can I complain? No, I knew what I was signing up for when I bought the ticket, I should have bought insurance or left earlier to get to the airport! That right there is accepting responsibility for my own decisions, bizarre concept I know.

Yes you could have paid for insurance - and this couple could have paid for preallocated seats.

Both of you would have had a better experience had you done so. Another example of how the absolute cheapest option is only moneysaving if it meets your needs .

Sorry about your holiday but well done on your attitude.