Ryanair - New reserved seating structure(s)

joeysoap

If it were random allocation as previously, I don't think it would raise so much comment or criticism. It the blatant seperating of couples and families, and the system might not be able to distinguish under 8 year olds

See Ryanair flights on the day I booked are now down to under €100 each. TBH for this price I would have booked direct, but when I was booking the fares were €156 with the usual 'only x left remaining at this price'. Clearly doesn't always pay to book early (with RY anyway)

miamee

C3PO wrote: »

I don't believe that I ever suggested that this was a "cost cutting" policy?

It is an income generating exercise, plain and simple! As you point out, it will also mean some additional costs for Ryanair but probably fairly marginal after initial software development?

To be clear, I don't usually fly Ryanair and would prefer to use other airlines even if they are a little bit more expensive! But I don't understand the attitude of people who want to avail of Ryanair's cheap flights but seem to feel an "entitlement" to have additional services included in the price!
I know I'm repeating myself, but Ryanair are really clear about their offering - take it or leave it!

I think part of the issue people are having with this is that Ryanair were NOT really clear about it. It is a relatively new thing as evidenced by posts in this thread from people who fly regularly and have only recently noticed the change in seating policy. Ryanair have denied that this is a new policy to the Irish Times when it's very obvious that it is, at best, an amendment to a previously existing policy and they are playing with semantics which gets people's backs up. Why not just say that they are introducing it to make more €€€?

C3PO wrote: »

Why should it increase boarding time? People have allocated seat numbers in either case. I would be surprised if Ryanair deliberately would introduce a new policy if they thought that it could lead to losing "slots" and thus increased cost.

People will either cough up for allocated seating or chance it and see what happens on board.
Get on board - see there is an empty seat next to your husband/wife who is seated 10 rows away - wait until everyone has boarded - doors are closing and when it is confirmed that the seat is empty, the shuffling and swapping and moving of bags and people begins. I have seen this with my own eyes on two different flights recently. In some cases this might lead to delays.

joeysoap wrote: »

If it were random allocation as previously, I don't think it would raise so much comment or criticism. It the blatant seperating of couples and families, and the system might not be able to distinguish under 8 year olds

See Ryanair flights on the day I booked are now down to under €100 each. TBH for this price I would have booked direct, but when I was booking the fares were €156 with the usual 'only x left remaining at this price'. Clearly doesn't always pay to book early (with RY anyway)

For future reference if you use AirHint.com it'll tell you whether the fare is likely to drop or you're getting a good deal

degsie

Only a matter of time before a vulnerable separated child is molested by a stranger because of this insane policy. RA would have hell to pay.

munchkin_utd

degsie wrote: »

Only a matter of time before a vulnerable separated child is molested by a stranger because of this insane policy. RA would have hell to pay.

no it isnt as this "problem" is going to fizzle out as it only is an issue for old bookings

With new bookings from the past few months its mandatory to book seats when making a booking including children, kids get free seats, adults pay the €4 or whatever.

rannerap

Just checked in for a flight in a few days time as soon as soon it became available to. Partner is in row 1, I am in row 30. Same on the way back. Both middle seats with no one beside us. Ryanair claiming that its "random" and not at all a scam to get us to pay to sit beside each other :rolleyes: literally couldnt get seats any further from each other if we tried.

degsie

The Caveman wrote: »

We were on a flight 2 weeks ago, and we had seats in row 2 E & F ( we paid for our seats)

Flight was full, and there was 2 major holdups.

Family was not seated together, and a their young child was sitting someware alone. i can only guess , but he was younger than 9

munchkin_utd wrote: »

no it isnt as this "problem" is going to fizzle out as it only is an issue for old bookings

With new bookings from the past few months its mandatory to book seats when making a booking including children, kids get free seats, adults pay the €4 or whatever.

So how did the above happen?

MOH

cobham wrote: »

Significantly our child is booked as a juvenile and you would have thought would be seated beside adult. Always used to be.”

This is the whole source of the problem.

People who want to be guaranteed to sit together should pay the extra few euro for that. Instead of which, people have been turning up at the airport for the last few years without having bothered to pay, then expect special treatment because they insist they can't be separated from their child. But wouldn't spend €4 to ensure that.

So then what are the crew supposed to do? Do you split up a group of people who have actually paid to sit together, to accommodate the skinflints?

After years of idiots trying to game the system, Ryanair have finally had enough. By making it clear that you can't expect to be seated together unless you pay, they'll get some whinging in the short term, but save themselves a lot of hassle in the long run once people finally lose their sense of automatic entitlement.

joeysoap

Why don't they just say fare xxx. Seat €5. First come first served.

Now you know the total cost of the flight and if you book early (or even earlish) you have plenty of choice where to sit.

Aer Lingus also charge for choosing a seat the main difference being they only have 2 or 3 price ranges (Ryanair have up 11) and you can turn up at the airport and get a boarding card and most cases you get together in the front of the aircraft (as passengers don't generally purchase these more expensive seats)
Ryanair seats from €4 only refer to rows 24 to 28, not that there's anything wrong with that. (Having missed a flight once because of a train delay you'd sit on the floor to get home)

embraer170

Ryanair are still lying:
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/hundreds-come-forward-to-complain-about-ryanair-seat-allocation-1.3112748

Bob24

embraer170 wrote: »

Ryanair are still lying:
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/hundreds-come-forward-to-complain-about-ryanair-seat-allocation-1.3112748

Glad to see the IT is exposing this for everyone to see. And I can't beleive such a blatant lie when the say: "When a customer does not purchase a seat, they are then randomly allocated a seat, which has always been our policy"

While they obviously have the right to change to whichever seat assignment policy they want (and customers have the right to be unhappy about it), not accepting any responsibility for the change they made and pretending it never happened is just ridiculous.

While they don't want to admit their mistake, I have no doubt they are aware of it and still stand behind what I said before:

Bob24 wrote: »

Give it a few months and they'll get rid of this once they realise they are losing more money from it than they are making.

ger664

Random seat allocation means you will unlikely be seated together. Clearly seat allocation prior to this was sequential. So MOL/Ryanair have pulled another money making stunt big surprise. If you want to sit together you now have to pay for it. If you have children under 12 you have to pay for your seat.

If you do not like this or the way you are been treated then fly with someone else. At least thanks to Ryanair you now have that option not like in the Eighties where AL was the only carrier in this fair isle and we paid handsomely for the privilege.

munchkin_utd

again, I'd make the point its still much cheaper to pay for your seat with Ryanair than have a free seat allocation with aer lingus, but then pay €8 per leg admin fee per passenger, including for kids, to cover overheads like checkin or whatever.

2 adults and 2 kids pay 8 euro return if they are lucky with Ryanair on top of the selected ticket price to have allocated seats. If youre not it'd be €16 return of a seat fee.

With Aer lingus its a whopping 8+8+8+8+8+8+8+8 = €64 Euro hidden admin/ checkin fees for a family.

Bob24

ger664 wrote: »

Random seat allocation means you will unlikely be seated together. Clearly seat allocation prior to this was sequential. So MOL/Ryanair have pulled another money making stunt big surprise. If you want to sit together you now have to pay for it. If you have children under 12 you have to pay for your seat.

If you do not like this or the way you are been treated then fly with someone else. At least thanks to Ryanair you now have that option not like in the Eighties where AL was the only carrier in this fair isle and we paid handsomely for the privilege.

Yes exactly - it is Ryanair's choice to change the way they allocate seats in whichever way they want and it is the custumers choice to decide to keep using them or not depending on how it affects the value for money in their opinion.
Not for all but for many routes there are alternative options.

I personally think they are making a mistake because it will cause more losses than gains, but of course what posters here think doesn't matter to them and they are making their own choices.

What is ridiculous behaviour on their end though is when they try to deny having made any change, probably because they know their now trick is very sneaky and they are not willing to take full responsibility for having made that decision. No one believes them and all it does is making them look like liars.

munchkin_utd

Bob24 wrote: »

<snip>
What is ridiculous behaviour on their end though is when they try to deny having made any change, probably because they know their now trick is very sneaky and they are not willing to take full responsibility for having made that decision. No one believes them and all it does is making them look like liars.

they havent changed their policy though !

They never guaranteed people sitting together, but what they have changed is that they went from at least trying to now proactively splitting people up.

Bob24

munchkin_utd wrote: »

again, I'd make the point its still much cheaper to pay for your seat with Ryanair than have a free seat allocation with aer lingus, but then pay €8 per leg admin fee per passenger, including for kids, to cover overheads like checkin or whatever.

2 adults and 2 kids pay 8 euro return if they are lucky with Ryanair on top of the selected ticket price to have allocated seats. If youre not it'd be €16 return of a seat fee.

With Aer lingus its a whopping 8+8+8+8+8+8+8+8 = €64 Euro hidden admin/ checkin fees for a family.

I think the problem is not the aditional cost. Regular fliers will compute all that and take it into account when they book.

For my the issues are more 1) the bad surprise it will give to some less frequent fliers as it is definitely not standard behaviour for an airline and not clearly explained when you book 2) the mess it will create for every customer and the cabin crew during boarding and while in the air because of people trying to work around an algorithm which was designed to scatter travel companions around the cabin as much as possible.

Bob24

munchkin_utd wrote: »

they havent changed their policy though !

They never guaranteed people sitting together, but what they have changed is that they went from at least trying to now proactively splitting people up.

Words need to be used accurately.

They haven't change their terms and conditions, but yes they have definitely changed their seat allocation policy.

munchkin_utd

Bob24 wrote: »

Words need to be used accurately.

They haven't change their terms and conditions, but yes they have definitely changed their seat allocation policy.

they have changed their seat allocation algorithm , but that'd be a different matter.

Bob24

munchkin_utd wrote: »

they have changed their seat allocation algorithm , but that'd be a different matter.

Well an algorithm meets specified requirements to implement a policy. Clearly it was not changed by one of their developers who did it for the laugh but rather following a business request to adjust the IT system so that it implements a new business policy.

But rather than discussing our own wording, let's go back to their statement:

"When a customer does not purchase a seat, they are then randomly allocated a seat, which has always been our policy".

Is that not a lie or at least deflection to say randomly allocating a seat for each passenger has always been their policy?

The fact is that people on the same booking were seating next to each other before and are now scattered across the cabin. So before they were not randomly positioned and the policy was to seat them next to each other. And now in the exact same situation the policy is to intentionally separate them.

EverythingGood

From today's Indo:

http://www.independent.ie/life/travel/travel-talk/is-ryanair-deliberately-splitting-up-passengers-who-refuse-to-pay-for-seat-selection-35806991.html

Maybe some media pressure will help FR "rethink", but rather doubtful!

Fred Swanson

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Murt10

All that needs to happen is that overprotective Mummy makes sure that all her little darlings are strapped in and happy and that she runs from one end of the plane to the other trying to make sure.

Doubtless, she will probably delay everyone else trying to find their own seat and she will also rub into other mummies looking after their children that that nasty Mr O Leary wouldn't let the family sit together.

Cause enough mayhem on a couple of flights both before takeoff and again at landing, and if, as a result, the plane doesn't make its turnaround time nasty Mr O'Leary may have to reconsider.

Personally, I'd love not sitting near my kids. More me time. Let someone else look after them.

I might even show crying kids near me how to unbuckle their seat belt so that they can go and find Mummy. :D:D

degsie

Murt10 wrote: »

Doubtless, she will probably delay everyone else trying to find their own seat and she will also rub into other mummies

This is an innuendo I'm not familiar with

mallen

So should we book tickets individually and then check in quickly one after the other for a group? Can't be any worse off if you don't want to pay for a seat.

Living Off The Splash

I always purchase my seat ticket. In the great scheme of things and when I am spending a grand or so on my holiday I do not consider the cost very high.
It's when I am asked to vacate my already paid for seat for some whiner who has not paid but expects everybody else to accommodate them that's when I will lose it.

grogi

Living Off The Splash wrote: »

I always purchase my seat ticket. In the great scheme of things and when I am spending a grand or so on my holiday I do not consider the cost very high.
It's when I am asked to vacate my already paid for seat for some whiner who has not paid but expects everybody else to accommodate them that's when I will lose it.

Classic example of penny wise and pound foolish.

kyogger

my and a mate flew to italy last week got given two different seats on the boarding card. asked an itlaian guy that was sitting next to my friends seat to move twice so that we could sit together and he wouldn't despite the fact he was in a middle seat and seemed to be on his own. in the end we found another 2 seats empty behind my assigned row and then another gang of people came on the plane unexpectedly and a mother spent 5 mins arguing with us trying to claim our two seats so that her children could sit together. it's a joke now with ryanair.

Allinall

kyogger wrote: »

my and a mate flew to italy last week got given two different seats on the boarding card. asked an itlaian guy that was sitting next to my friends seat to move twice so that we could sit together and he wouldn't despite the fact he was in a middle seat and seemed to be on his own. in the end we found another 2 seats empty behind my assigned row and then another gang of people came on the plane unexpectedly and a mother spent 5 mins arguing with us trying to claim our two seats so that her children could sit together. it's a joke now with ryanair.

So you harassed a guy flying home to his own country.

When that didn't work, you just decided to sit in someone else's seats, and complained when they - rightly - wanted to sit in there allocated seats.

And it's Ryanair's fault?

Sometimes I despair.

Fred Swanson

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mattser

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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By whom ?

Fred Swanson

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