Ryanair forces children aged 3 to sit apart from parents
CHILDREN as young as three are being split up from their families on Ryanair flights, parents say.
Travellers claim the airline deliberately seats family members at opposite ends of aircraft in a bid to get them to pay extra to stay together.
The airline introduced fees, ranging from £2 to more than £11 per passenger, for customers to choose their seats. This is on top of other extras such as hold baggage.
Ryanair has said those who choose not to pay are allocated seats randomly. It admits it keeps aisle and window seats for those who pay to book them, but says it does not split families up.
However, families dispute this, saying they are being split up in middle seats throughout the plane, even when dozens of others are available.
Julie Conway claimed her three children, aged three, six and nine, were seated in different rows ranging from eight to 32 on their flight from Liverpool to Cork, Ireland.
She wrote on Twitter: ‘How low can Ryanair go? To have a threeyear-old by himself, really.’
Business consultant Thomas Berger, 48, paid £690 for his finance manager wife Eva, 43, and his 12year-old twin daughters Jana and Jasmine to fly return between Dusseldorf, Germany, and their home near Brussels in Belgium.
He said even though there were seats available next to each other, Ryanair put his family in three different rows. When he complained, he was told to ‘purchase your preferred seat’ at a cost of £28. ‘It’s very bad if they’re dividing families up on purpose,’ said Mr Berger.
Another traveller hit by the policy was financial services worker Stacey Stockden, 25, who organised a family trip to the south of France. She booked flights from Bristol to Beziers costing £683.50, including £180 to place bags in the hold.
The family, from Congresbury in Somerset, were allocated five separate seats in rows ranging from two to 31, meaning Miss Stockden’s grandmother Eileen, 75, had to sit by herself during the flight.
Miss Stockden said: ‘It’s a bad way to start the holiday. This money-making exercise is causing issues for [Ryanair]. It’s making it more difficult for the average family to go away.’
In one extraordinary case, friends Steph Vickers and Faye Cutler organised a joint hen party, with 15 people paying £220 each for a return ticket from Birmingham to Ibiza. Each member of the party was given a middle seat through the length of the plane.
‘I couldn’t believe it,’ Miss Vickers, 32, from Birmingham, told the Money Saving Expert website. ‘I thought it was disgusting how much they expect you to pay, on top of what you’ve already paid, just to sit next to somebody.’
Since October, Ryanair has made it compulsory for at least one adult in a party with children under 12 to pay £4 for a seat reservation. This allows parents to choose nearby seats for up to four children in particular rows.
The airline said Mrs Conway chose to pay £9.70 the day after her tweet so she and her husband could sit with her children.
A spokesman added: ‘We don’t separate families. We require families with kids under 12 to sit together and we give all of the kids free reserved seats.
‘Secondly, the chances of random seat passengers being separated are extremely high because so many of our customers now choose to pay for reserved seats.’