Fury as Ryanair seats passengers 'rows apart' unless they pay to sit together

ChaskhaChaia

I'm flying with Ryanair next month, but fortunately I know exactly where I'm sitting because I'm travelling with a child and therefore we had mandatory seat reservations. I remember the days of the free for all seating. Come a long way since then!

jpsartre

agarnett wrote: »

Can you show us evidence of the website change?

I can't but the website used to say something to the effect that travel partners would be seated together unless a split-up couldn't be avoided.

IAmWales

jpsartre wrote: »

I can't but the website used to say something to the effect that travel partners would be seated together unless a split-up couldn't be avoided.

This is all I can find. Are you referring to something else?

Will families be split up if they do not wish to pay for allocated seating?

We will endeavour to seat families together however this will not always be possible. If you want to be guaranteed seats together we recommend that seats are purchased.

If you chose not to select and purchase a seat and have been randomly allocated seats which are not together please contact our call centre so that may try to assist you.

jpsartre

I don't remember the exact formulation but I'm guessing that's it. Is it still on the website somewhere?

agarnett

jpsartre wrote: »

I don't remember the exact formulation but I'm guessing that's it. Is it still on the website somewhere?

If you search on Google for the string "randomly allocated seats which are not together" then interestingly one thread it throws up is this MSE thread from over three years ago when they first introduced allocated numbered seating (old regulars will remember when it was a free for all where we sat, every flight ):
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4878850

There are a number of TripAdvisor threads containing the exact same words too. Event the Ryanair FanClub Forum quotes it, there are apparently no hits from Ryanair official website.

I can almost see Michael O'Leary leaning over the shoulder of his webmaster having inserted the key and pressed the hide forever button:

"You heard it hit ... , and I ... was never here"

I always suspected Ryanair of hiding their tracks when they changed T&Cs and I think this is a very good example of where they have worked hard to do so.

Thank goodness tRyanair don't have sufficient power yet to erase the truth from sites like MSE and TripAdvisor. I wonder how long it will last on their fan club site :rotfl:

RobRH

This is nothing unusual, as ryanair treats all its customers with derision and would do without seats if it could to pack more in! Rather than cheap airline it should be called "Cattle Class Transport" livestock gets treated better. This situation needs to be reported to the air safety authorities. Best advice is to avoid them completely, pass on the message over as wide an audience as possible and they will go bust, which will drive the message home! You can get a much better deal elsewhere, which includes customer service and passenger safety considerations.

jpsartre

RobRH wrote: »

Best advice is to avoid them completely, pass on the message over as wide an audience as possible and they will go bust

Pure wishful thinking with no root in reality (wishful on your part that is, I wouldn't want them to go bust). If the last couple of decades have told of us anything it is that a substantial majority of passengers make their booking decision based on the price of the headline fare and everything else is a distant second. People are well aware of Ryanair's reputation and have been for years but use them regardless.

buglawton

Like others I know Ryanair has a 'tricksy' reputation when you book. (Having regularly booked on behalf of less IT-savvy relatives).

But for a year or 2 I had found they'd 'cleaned up' their act, you paid what you saw and it had got a lot easier to step through a booking procedure without being tripped up.

This latest seat placement thing however is a return to (bad) form.
I really don't believe it'll help sales in the long run.

Do you really have to now go through extra manual steps, selecting individual seats, to ensure you're seated next to a partner?

PeacefulWaters

RobRH wrote: »

This is nothing unusual, as ryanair treats all its customers with derision and would do without seats if it could to pack more in! Rather than cheap airline it should be called "Cattle Class Transport" livestock gets treated better. This situation needs to be reported to the air safety authorities. Best advice is to avoid them completely, pass on the message over as wide an audience as possible and they will go bust, which will drive the message home! You can get a much better deal elsewhere, which includes customer service and passenger safety considerations.

Don't be soft.

pjh104

Awfully cynical policy here.

1. Checking in for STN-DUB flight my wife and I are allocated middle seats many rows apart. Not that bothered about the rows apart on a short flight, but the middle seats when all around are empty?

2. Not sure where the £2.00 figure comes from. Checking various seat locations row 18+ shows between £4.00 and £10.00 per seat.

3. Once you've entered the seat selection process it is difficult to find the way to abandon the selection and revert to random.