Ryanair sits hen party in FIFTEEN separate rows as outrage over seating policy grows

mattyprice4004

If you want to sit with your friends, you pay for allocated seats.
If you're incapable of being without your friends sat next to you for a couple of hours, flying probably isn't for you!

Pollycat

Mobeer wrote: »

We need some maths analysis to accompany the article - just what are the odds that a "random" allocation gives all middle seats and all separate rows?

Why do we need 'some maths analysis'?

The fact is these 15 women deliberately chose not to pay to have seats together.
The result is they are not sat together.
I have no idea why they would expect anything different.

melanzana

How much would the seats have cost does anyone know?

Pity Ryanair doesn't just add 3 quid each automatically for seats of your choice other than exit or front rows. If you don't want to pay (uncheck the box) you get the middle seats all over the place.

Sorted. (I think, but someone will correct me!)

bagand96

I have no idea why they would expect anything different.

The point here is that generally the industry has operated that if you don't pay to select a seat, your group would be allocated a seat choice by the airline. Generally, parties would still be seated together if it was possible.

Until about 6 weeks ago this is how Ryanair operated, their system filled up the aircraft quite logically as people checked in, and most of the time parties would be sat together (save for the people that check in latest when there is only a few random seats left)

Now, Ryanair will deliberately sit people at opposite ends of the plane, and then cheekily still offer them the chance to change for a cost. It's this that people are finding leaves a bad taste.

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

If I was Ryan air I would not fly them home!

yllas67

We just had a similar issue when 8 of us flew to Malta to celebrate a birthday
we were allocated 8 seats in 8 rows spanning across the length of the plane .
All rows allocated had seats spare so there was plenty of opportunity for us to at least sit in pairs
we ended up spending £6 each person each way so that we could sit together.
This cost us in total a further £96 on top of our original flight prices , so in actual fact our cheap flights became pretty expensive.
Unfortunately we have booked , prior to finding out about this ridiculous seating policy, some more flights with Ryanair for later this year, so am guessing we'll be stung for more seat charges then .
Needless to say we will not be using this rip off airline again.

Mobeer

Pollycat wrote: »

Why do we need 'some maths analysis'?

The fact is these 15 women deliberately chose not to pay to have seats together.
The result is they are not sat together.
I have no idea why they would expect anything different.

Ryanair have said that the seats are allocated randomly if not pre-booked. I would like to know what are the odds that this is actually random, including for example that not only was every one of the 15 passengers in a different row, but also that every one was allocated a middle seat.

For example if there were 180 seats in 3:3 arrangement and the plane were otherwise empty:
* passenger 1 could be in any 60 middle seats out of 180 empty seats
* passenger 2 could be in any of 58 middle seats in a different row to passenger 1 out of 179 empty seats
* passenger 3 could be in any of 56 middle seats in a different row to passengers 1 and 2 out of 178 empty seats
* ...

Working up to passenger 15, who could be allocated any of 32 seats out of 166 empty seats, the odds of all 15 passengers being in middle seats in separate rows would be:
1 in 557,247,974

Of course this has many assumptions - on how many seats, on no-one else booking any seats..

But still it looks rather unlikely to happen

photome

yllas67 wrote: »

We just had a similar issue when 8 of us flew to Malta to celebrate a birthday
we were allocated 8 seats in 8 rows spanning across the length of the plane .
All rows allocated had seats spare so there was plenty of opportunity for us to at least sit in pairs
we ended up spending £6 each person each way so that we could sit together.
This cost us in total a further £96 on top of our original flight prices , so in actual fact our cheap flights became pretty expensive.
Unfortunately we have booked , prior to finding out about this ridiculous seating policy, some more flights with Ryanair for later this year, so am guessing we'll be stung for more seat charges then .
Needless to say we will not be using this rip off airline again.

It was £6 each, , hardly a rip off, but it is your choice not to use them again although I suspect you would if they offered the best price/route/times etc


Yes its petty what ryanair are doing but they are a business after all

Pollycat

bagand96 wrote: »

The point here is that generally the industry has operated that if you don't pay to select a seat, your group would be allocated a seat choice by the airline. Generally, parties would still be seated together if it was possible.

Until about 6 weeks ago this is how Ryanair operated, their system filled up the aircraft quite logically as people checked in, and most of the time parties would be sat together (save for the people that check in latest when there is only a few random seats left)

Now, Ryanair will deliberately sit people at opposite ends of the plane, and then cheekily still offer them the chance to change for a cost. It's this that people are finding leaves a bad taste.

So Ryanair have changed their seating policy.

People have choices:

• pay to choose seats with your travelling companions when flying Ryanair
• don't pay to choose seats when flying with Ryanair
• fly with an alternative airline

If this change in policy starts to hit Ryanair's profits, I'd bet they'll review and possible revise that policy.

DCFC79

Its a couple of hours they would be split up, the 2 groups I went with on the no frills airlines were also split up but wasnt an issue for us, they could have booked the seats.

A good thing about being split up is they are unlikely to cause trouble.