Ryanair new seating trick

takman

zagfles wrote: »

That's not a "good reason". On my last flight I was sat next to someone who'd been auto allocated a seat, my wife had an empty seat next to her.

Well it's definitely a good business reason. Let's imagine that your wife was auto-allocated a seat because people rarely pay extra to sit there. But the seat next to her is a seat that on 8/10 flights someone will pay to sit there. It would be bad business sense for them to give you that seat because they may loose money, so they put you in a seat that is also unlikely to be chosen by someone paying for a seat.

You also need to consider that not all passengers are allocated seats at the same time. They are allocated the seats depending on when they check in/book. So the guy sat next to you may have also been auto-allocated but it may have been a seat that has a medium chance of someone paying to sit there. So if you checked in first they wouldn't want to give your wife that seat just in case someone who booked/checked in after wanted to pay for it.
But nobody did this and when the person sitting next to you booked/checked all the other "low value" seats were full so they got allocated that one.

This system makes perfect sense if they aim to get the most amount of revenue by leaving the most popular seats which people pay for empty as long as possible.

If your not paying for a seat its perfectly reasonable that you be seated in the least popular seats.

zagfles wrote: »

So it's an irrelvant analogy then. The issue is being split up. Theatres don't do that.

The analogy was relevant to the post i was replying directly to, read the post and you will understand it. The poster was stating that they believed all charges should be proportionate to the cost the business incurs. I said this isn't the case because prices increase based on supply and demand across most businesses. I gave two analogies (Airport Parking and Theater) to explain this.

buglawton

ScorpiondeRooftrouser wrote: »

Well of course they are. They are perfectly open about this. it's not in doubt.

The question is whether they deliberately seat people who don't pay apart and the answer is no, they don't go out of their way to do it, but they don't go out of their way to seat you together either. Obviously if you are asked to pay for something and don't, you are not likely to get it. There are a lot more seat combinations not together then there are together. Simple statistics show you will likely end up apart.

People who don't pay for a sandwich don't get a sandwich, either. This isn't viewed as an evil attempt to victimise those who don't pay for sandwiches.

Things are very leaky nowadays. One day the exact software change that was done to seat singly booked groups apart will be revealed, like the VW cheat software was. That'll be a tad embarrassing.

Gavin83

zagfles wrote: »

Even Ryanair admit it.

So they've said they'll purposely sit couples apart even if seats together are empty in order to increase revenue?

zagfles wrote: »

When was your last flight?

Last month.

zagfles

Gavin83 wrote: »

So they've said they'll purposely sit couples apart even if seats together are empty in order to increase revenue?

Read what they said. Someone quoted it earlier in the thread.

Last month.

Yet you claimed you can't change seats after auto allocation. Maybe you need to look closer next time.

zagfles

takman wrote: »

Well it's definitely a good business reason. Let's imagine that your wife was auto-allocated a seat because people rarely pay extra to sit there. But the seat next to her is a seat that on 8/10 flights someone will pay to sit there. It would be bad business sense for them to give you that seat because they may loose money, so they put you in a seat that is also unlikely to be chosen by someone paying for a seat.

You also need to consider that not all passengers are allocated seats at the same time. They are allocated the seats depending on when they check in/book. So the guy sat next to you may have also been auto-allocated but it may have been a seat that has a medium chance of someone paying to sit there. So if you checked in first they wouldn't want to give your wife that seat just in case someone who booked/checked in after wanted to pay for it.
But nobody did this and when the person sitting next to you booked/checked all the other "low value" seats were full so they got allocated that one.

You believe that if you want. You believe that it's nothing whatsoever to do with wanting people to pay to sit together, and it's all on the value of the individual seat. I won't.

takman

zagfles wrote: »

You believe that if you want. You believe that it's nothing whatsoever to do with wanting people to pay to sit together, and it's all on the value of the individual seat. I won't.

Well if they are simply seating people apart randomly like you suggest then they may end up putting people in seats that are popular with people who are paying. This would mean they would be solely relying on people wanting to sit together and hoping they pay for it to make money.

In my system the most popular paid for seats are left empty as long as possible so they still get the revenue from people who pay just because they want a certain location in the plane. But this system would also have the secondary effect of people being often seated apart, so they would still get the revenue from people who will pay to sit together.

So why would they use the system you suggest when they will get less money and possible bad publicity if someone leaks the reason? when they can use the system i suggested which generates the most revenue and if the system is leaked there is a logical reason for people being seated apart.

Gavin83

zagfles wrote: »

Read what they said. Someone quoted it earlier in the thread.

I've just wasted my time reading through the whole thread again and I still can't find a quote from Ryanair stating they purposely split couples up purely to make them pay more for reserved seating.

zagfles wrote: »

Yet you claimed you can't change seats after auto allocation. Maybe you need to look closer next time.

Why would I need to? I've never been sat away from my travelling companion.

Besides that's not what I'm saying, I'm referring to you noticing once on the plane. I doubt most people notice before they physically sit down and realise they're sat apart.

zagfles

takman wrote: »

Well if they are simply seating people apart randomly like you suggest then they may end up putting people in seats that are popular with people who are paying. This would mean they would be solely relying on people wanting to sit together and hoping they pay for it to make money.

In my system the most popular paid for seats are left empty as long as possible so they still get the revenue from people who pay just because they want a certain location in the plane. But this system would also have the secondary effect of people being often seated apart, so they would still get the revenue from people who will pay to sit together.

Do you really think location on the plane is massively important to people? Other than the few extra legroom seats etc, people generally pay because they want to be sat together, not because seat 11A is a brilliant seat.

So why would they use the system you suggest when they will get less money and possible bad publicity if someone leaks the reason? when they can use the system i suggested which generates the most revenue and if the system is leaked there is a logical reason for people being seated apart.

Ryanair seem to believe in the "all publicity is good publicity" adage. Anything to get a headline. They started rumours about having coin operated toilets and about having standing only flights in the past.

I really don't care anyway. If we book a Ryanair flight, we'll expect to be seated apart. If we book an Easyjet flight, we'll expect to be together.

Pollycat

Gavin83 wrote: »

I've just wasted my time reading through the whole thread again and I still can't find a quote from Ryanair stating they purposely split couples up purely to make them pay more for reserved seating.

I can't either.

I do remember Ryanair's head of Marketing (Kenny Jacobs) saying on Watchdog that there was no splitting up of passengers.

Ryanair is facing criticism on social media over its seating policy by passengers who find themselves split up from their travelling companions.

But the Irish no-frills airline rejected suggestions that updated seating procedures seek to persuade passengers to pay extra for assigned seats.

A spokesman told The Independent: “There is no change in Ryanair policy. When a customer does not purchase a seat, they are then randomly allocated a seat, which has always been our policy.

“Ninety five per cent of the seats on our flights are full, we are now in the peak summer travel season and we are carrying more customers, meaning there are now less seats to allocate randomly. Therefore, we advise customers who wish to sit with their travelling companions to purchase allocated seats, which start from €2.”

http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/articles/282341/ryanair-faces-criticism-over-its-allocated-seating-policy

A link to an admission by Ryanair that contradicts the above would be good.

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

buglawton wrote: »

Things are very leaky nowadays. One day the exact software change that was done to seat singly booked groups apart will be revealed, like the VW cheat software was. That'll be a tad embarrassing.

There's no such thing as a singly booked group in the eyes of the software or the airline. Of course singly booked people won't end up sitting together, except by fluke.

If you mean group bookings where people have not paid for seats, do you honestly believe there needs to be something in the software that deliberately places them apart? All you need is software that pays no attention whatsoever to keeping them together - which is exactly what they say they will do in the case of people not paying. If it allocates the less popular seats on a random basis, then of course people will end up apart the vast majority of the time. They will only end up together if two adjacent seats come up by chance.