Ryanair seating policy changes

Irish Steve

MY elderly parents, late 80's and early 90's, still travel by air occasionally, though they prefer to come from the UK by train and ferry, simply because they find things like airport security, getting to the gate, the luggage restrictions and the rugby scrum at the gate increasingly intolerable, and getting up the front air stairs on a 737 is not exactly easy for my mother, she's far from immobile, but the stairs are not a nice experience.

They've been using Ryanair for years, and I know that if they book a flight now, it won't even enter their heads that when they check in on line, the system won't seat them together, and I also know that if they are not together, my mother will possibly have an anxiety attack, she wouldn't go near aircraft for over 20 years after a flight crashed near Bristol over 40 years ago.

So, I will now have to tell them to either pay extra to sit together, or tolerate a poor policy decision by a bean counter at Ryanair. The likely outcome is that they will just choose not to fly, and I wonder how many other people will make the same decision. This latest twist strikes me as a very mean spirited and nasty move that will probably do more harm than good in terms of customer relations, and in terms of confusion and disruption on the aircraft.

billie1b

martinsvi wrote: »

I'm just trying to understand what I'm looking at. Display says - "Sold" but it doesn't specify whether those are seats or what. Infants still require a fee for carriage. They do go on loading manifest, so do they nappy bag allowance, if I'm not mistaking, it's 11 kilos (6+5) in total per infant.

Also just in April Ryanair spokesperson, in the wake of United issues, claimed that Ryanair don't overbook. Having been on dozens of packed Ryanair flights, I've never seen anyone being denied boarding. So putting my ones and twos together, I just want to make sure that whatever claim Tenger is making, he can stand by it if the Ryanair lawyer brigade shows up.

Infants are included on the Ryanair manifest but not on the sold seats, sold seats are for pax occupying seats which infants do not, also there is no allowance on a Ryanair loadsheet for an infant, they are included weightless.

martinsvi

billie1b wrote: »

Infants are included on the Ryanair manifest but not on the sold seats, sold seats are for pax occupying seats which infants do not, also there is no allowance on a Ryanair loadsheet for an infant, they are included weightless.

fair enough, looks like you know your stuff. Assuming the claim is true - I wonder have they started overbooking just recently or have they just been incredibly lucky with just the right amount of people not showing up? Given the scale of Ryanair's ops, I doubt it's luck

billie1b

martinsvi wrote: »

fair enough, looks like you know your stuff. Assuming the claim is true - I wonder have they started overbooking just recently or have they just been incredibly lucky with just the right amount of people not showing up? Given the scale of Ryanair's ops, I doubt it's luck

If it helps put you at ease, I have been a dispatcher with Ryanair 15 years now, the over booking came in about 2 years ago, you very rarely have problems with it as you're nearly guaranteed a 10% no show on most of the flights that are overbooked. It happens when seats first go on sale for €10 and people buy them up but then don't show up as they can't get time of work or something else came up, to them it's only €10 wasted

markpb

billie1b wrote: »

If it helps put you at ease, I have been a dispatcher with Ryanair 15 years now, the over booking came in about 2 years ago, you very rarely have problems with it as you're nearly guaranteed a 10% no show on most of the flights that are overbooked. It happens when seats first go on sale for €10 and people buy them up but then don't show up as they can't get time of work or something else came up, to them it's only €10 wasted

Do you think Ryanair overbook less aggressively than American operators? Almost any time I've flown in/to America, I've seen them ask for volunteers to be bumped.

The_Chap

It's a fecking joke now, just checked in as a couple allocated two middle seats in different rows, went to change seats and all window and aisle seats taken apart from 3 rows at the back completely free, so they mustn't be putting anyone together now to gouge more money from you
They'll change their tune once they realise it will cause chaos with people swapping around before takeoff
Loads of middle seats free, what is that about

billie1b

markpb wrote: »

Do you think Ryanair overbook less aggressively than American operators? Almost any time I've flown in/to America, I've seen them ask for volunteers to be bumped.

A lot less aggressively

Radio5

So if you pay the extra money, when you come to check in on-line you will get boarding details for those exact seats ?

Blut2

From a revenue generation point of view I can see why this has been implemented; it will definitely encourage more people to reserve seats.

But as mentioned above, I do wonder how much delays caused by ongoing games of musical chairs at boarding will end up costing. That plus the extremely bad PR from this could end up making it fairly costly.

plodder

Irish Times: Ryanair denies deliberately separating passengers to make money

The headline doesn't seem to be supported by the article. There's no denial that I can see.

The_Chap

plodder wrote: »

Irish Times: Ryanair denies deliberately separating passengers to make money

The headline doesn't seem to be supported by the article. There's no denial that I can see.

Of course it's exactly what they are doing

trellheim

As with all ancillary revenue stuff as on the face of it it sounds like an earner.

That said


If you start impacting on turnaround times this will get binned real quick as utilization of those aircraft in some cases is quite tight, so if people are slowing down to sort seats out you can be sure it will get attention.

Simon Gruber Says

If it's causing delays they can easily adopt a policy that all passengers must be in their assigned seats for take off. May already be in place, just needs to be enforced. You can then sort out swaps after the seat belt sign is off.

Radio5

More people are flying with us so there are less seats to go around? That seems to be what they are saying.......

plodder

Radio5 wrote: »

More people are flying with us so there are less seats to go around? That seems to be what they are saying.......

If more people are pre-booking it might make sense, but not more people flying generally. I've been on plenty of Ryanair flights that were full, but I got seats together "randomly" allocated. I think posters have claimed they went on-line to see if many seats were pre-booked, and that appeared not to be the case.

Masala

plodder wrote: »

Irish Times: Ryanair denies deliberately separating passengers to make money

The headline doesn't seem to be supported by the article. There's no denial that I can see.

hahaha.... what a PR machine they are!!! Squirmed out of that nicely with a 'there is less seats to allocate freely' blah blah.

IngazZagni

In regards to Tengers post, those numbers would also include staff and duty standby travel so they can be added on top of the 189 seats for sale. There's almost always a high number of no shows on UK flights anyway.

As for Ryanairs response to the Irish Times. It makes me angry. They have flat out lied to us. Do they think we are that stupid? The terms may not have changed but the system certainly has. It is an obvious ploy to increase ancillary revenue. "Always getting better" has come to a shuddering hault and is now in reverse.

billie1b

IngazZagni wrote: »

In regards to Tengers post, those numbers would also include staff and duty standby travel so they can be added on top of the 189 seats for sale. There's almost always a high number of no shows on UK flights anyway.

As for Ryanairs response to the Irish Times. It makes me angry. They have flat out lied to us. Do they think we are that stupid? The terms may not have changed but the system certainly has. It is an obvious ploy to increase ancillary revenue. "Always getting better" has come to a shuddering hault and is now in reverse.

Incorrect, staff and duty travel are included on the standby list, which is not the revenue seats sold list. The only staff travel included on the revenue seats is PRIV travel and thats very rare as they have private jets now.

embraer170

billie1b wrote: »

martinsvi wrote: »

fair enough, looks like you know your stuff. Assuming the claim is true - I wonder have they started overbooking just recently or have they just been incredibly lucky with just the right amount of people not showing up? Given the scale of Ryanair's ops, I doubt it's luck

If it helps put you at ease, I have been a dispatcher with Ryanair 15 years now, the over booking came in about 2 years ago, you very rarely have problems with it as you're nearly guaranteed a 10% no show on most of the flights that are overbooked. It happens when seats first go on sale for €10 and people buy them up but then don't show up as they can't get time of work or something else came up, to them it's only €10 wasted

On the rare occasions, how does Ryanair deal when more than 189 people try to checkin?

Do the last people to checkin get asked to show up at the airport desk or is a boarding card issued without a seat number?

ninebeanrows

They are also attempting to enforce this...

I was asked impolitely on a recent flight sitting in a row near the back of the plane beside my girlfriend whether that was my allocated seat -

They obviously were surprised to see two people who wanted to be seating next to each other actually sitting there!

----Also as i'm an unsocial troglodyte- I had worked out on the previous algorithm where to buy a seat that resulted in you getting a full row to yourself on 90% of flights - this has now changed

billie1b

embraer170 wrote: »

On the rare occasions, how does Ryanair deal when more than 189 people try to checkin?

Do the last people to checkin get asked to show up at the airport desk or is a boarding card issued without a seat number?

You're issued with a 00 or 0 on your boarding pass if no seats available to assign

board_walker

I recently flew with Ryanair and opted for the random seat selection for myself and my wife as we always were given seats together. I was given the middle seat in row 14 and my wife who is blind ( they would be aware of this) was given a middle seat in row 24. They "very helpfully" had a popup that noticed that we were 10 rows apart and gave us the option to change seats. I ended up paying an extra €34 to change and reserve seats on the return flight. Seats were available on both sides of the middle seats that were allotted. Clearly a scheme to extract more money from their passengers. Always getting better!. Low fares made simple! I don't think so. Why cant they allot seats together an just build it into their fare?

embraer170

billie1b wrote: »

You're issued with a 00 or 0 on your boarding pass if no seats available to assign

Thanks for this. Where is the problem dealt with? At an airport checkin desk or at the gate?

What is one of these people with 0/00 has luggage? Are they still allowed to check it in?

embraer170

board_walker wrote: »

I recently flew with Ryanair and opted for the random seat selection for myself and my wife as we always were given seats together. I was given the middle seat in row 14 and my wife who is blind ( they would be aware of this) was given a middle seat in row 24. They "very helpfully" had a popup that noticed that we were 10 rows apart and gave us the option to change seats. I ended up paying an extra €34 to change and reserve seats on the return flight. Seats were available on both sides of the middle seats that were allotted. Clearly a scheme to extract more money from their passengers. Always getting better!. Low fares made simple! I don't think so. Why cant they allot seats together an just build it into their fare?

And with an extra €34 out of you at absolutely no cost to them, Ryanair have achieved their goal.

trishasaffron

I don't really understand people being annoyed. Sitting together is an optional extra that Ryanair want you to pay for. If you don't want that option don't pay for it. The fact that you were able to get the option free in the past is neither here nor there.

As a frequent lone traveller I have occasionally paid to get a seat near the front so I could get out quickly when necessary. Nonetheless I was frequently approached by staff to change my seat so that a couple (who hadn't paid extra) could sit together. The couple always had some heartrending medical reason. Always baffled me why they hadn't paid for their seats if it was so necessary!

rayz

I had a similar experience going to and from Tenerife last week. I understand people saying that you get what you pay for and that is fair enough. Ryanair is cheap and I love them for it.

However, there are issues with this new policy.

When two people on the same booking are being allocated seats 8B and 30B (as in my case), and you have used the one phone for both boarding passes, it causes hassles getting on the plane. I had to get on at the back of the plane in order to be there when my partner was showing her boarding pass on the phone. Then the steward tells me I should have got on at the front!! I mean honestly!! Our boarding passes were on the same phone as it was the same bloody booking! I had no choice.

Even worse, when I EVENTUALLY managed to get to my seat up front, I noticed I was sitting next to a man tending to his little baby girl. I was previously behind him and his wife in the queue at the boarding gate so we got to talking. He tells me his wife was allocated 30A.... he was in 8A. So naturally, I offered to swap with her as my partner was is 30B and I was 8B. I don't know if this was simply a coincidence but either way, both couples ended up sitting next to each other. It caused a bit of disruption getting up and down the plane but the new mum was able to sit with her baby so I was only too happy to block the aisle for a moment.

Similar stuff was happening on the way back. People were swapping all over the place. It led to complete pandemonium to be honest. Yet again I was at the front with my partner at the back but since we were almost the last people on the plane and there was a free seat next to her (vacated by someone who was attempting to get closer to their family), I just sat there next to her.

The resulting situation means that loads of people were sat in completely different seats to the ones they were allocated. The whole situation just seems to be slowing things down, dunno if it is worth the couple of hundred euro Ryanair might bag per flight in extra funds raised by same seat bookings when it is clearly costing extra time sitting on stand while passengers sort out these seat swaps.

trishasaffron

I wish if passengers want to sit together they would pay for it instead of putting pressure on other passengers to shift seats. Like credit " Please don't ask as a refusal may offend". I don't want to be dragged into other peoples' parsimonious trades.

trishasaffron

In the days of free seating couple often used to take a window and aisle seat near the front leaving the middle seat vacant banking on the fact that it would be left alone. I usually boarded late and so was delighted to find a vacant seat near the front and had no problem sitting in the middle once it meant I could exit early. Many couple would then budge up together leaving me the aisle or window seat but many others would pretend not to know each other - not exchanging a word for the whole flight in case their cosy scheme was rumbled.

Honestly guys - if families, couples, friends whatever want to sit together just pay for it - that's the deal.

LiamaDelta

board_walker wrote:

I recently flew with Ryanair and opted for the random seat selection for myself and my wife as we always were given seats together. I was given the middle seat in row 14 and my wife who is blind ( they would be aware of this) was given a middle seat in row 24. They "very helpfully" had a popup that noticed that we were 10 rows apart and gave us the option to change seats. I ended up paying an extra €34 to change and reserve seats on the return flight. Seats were available on both sides of the middle seats that were allotted. Clearly a scheme to extract more money from their passengers. Always getting better!. Low fares made simple! I don't think so. Why cant they allot seats together an just build it into their fare?

However if you had chosen seats at booking likely you would be able to sit together for less than a fiver each!

IngazZagni

I just flew on a short flight within mainland Europe this eveninng with Ryanair. The flight was about half full. I was one of the last to board. As I looked up the cabin I noticed that almost every middle seat was taken from front to back and only the odd window or aisle was occupied. Once the door closed the game of musical chairs commenced. People were getting up and moving everywhere. The cabin crew were trying to get people to sit down without much luck. The plane started pushing back and still people were standing up. It was very funny to watch. Poor cabin crew though that have to put up with this new seating system. It was never like this before.