Ryanair - New reserved seating structure(s)

grogi wrote: »

No. I am not going to be extorted.

I will not be offended if anyone refused to move when asked, but I am not going to pay the chancers either.

That's absolutely fine grogi.

If you are happy with your middle seat away from your companions, great.

You have to admit though, that when those who haven't paid expect those who have paid, to move to accommodate them it is really a p*sstake.

We Shall Not Be Moved! lol.

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

Time for seat paying passengers to get tough with the scrooges.

No means no. If enough people refuse to move, the scrooges will eventually pay €2 or whatever instead of causing dramas on the tarmac.

I never thought Irish people were such skinflints. There is a country not too far away from us that is English speaking and they are famous for saving 20p when they can.

Come on folks, just pay the money.

I would absolutely refuse to move my seat having paid for it. And I really don't care if the person asking me really hates me anymore. It is not my problem to solve this is it?

Stick to your seats like glue, do not appease the skinflints. Enjoy your trip.

The things is ... it shouldn't have to be a concern of yours to defend your seat. If an airline is charging you for a seat they should ensure that you as a customer get what you paid for without have to be subject to recurrent requests to give it away (which most other airlines ensure because their seat allocation polices don't tend to encourage many passengers to try and swap).

This is were Ryanair is ambivalent: while they are selling you an allocated seat they will never ensure it isn't some kind concern for you to keep it (to the point of making a strong statement on this forum, which wouldn't occur for exemple to an Aer Lingus passenger) because:
1) They know a good share of customers will refuse to pay for a seat but will want to try to swap once on board, and they don't want to confront them as at the end of the day it would probably cause conflicts on board / public uproar and be bad for the business as it would again start damaging discussions about their policy of voluntary separating travellers on the same ticket. So they are making a deliberate choice to tolerate seat swapping as sweetener for the controversial policy which means leaving you on your own telling swappers your seat is not available for swaps.
2) Even if they wanted to enforce seat allocations, their cabin crew is already very busy and doesn't exactly have time to walk each passenger to their seat and ensure they pick one assigned to them. So they also know that practically it is not possible to do unless they spend more on staff and longer boarding time, which is clearly not something they would do.

Bob24 wrote: »

The things is ... it shouldn't have to be a concern of yours to defend your seat. If an airline is charging you for a seat they should ensure that you as a customer get what you paid for without have to be subject to recurrent requests to give it away (which most other airlines ensure because their seat allocation polices don't tend to encourage many passengers to try and swap).

This is were Ryanair is ambivalent: while they are selling you an allocated seat they will never ensure it isn't some kind concern for you to keep it (to the point of making a strong statement on this forum, which wouldn't occur for exemple to an Aer Lingus passenger) because:
1) They know a good share of customers will refuse to pay for a seat but will want to try to swap once on board, and they don't want to confront them as at the end of the day it would probably cause conflicts on board / public uproar and be bad for the business as it would again start damaging discussions about their policy of voluntary separating travellers on the same ticket. So they are making a deliberate choice to tolerate seat swapping as sweetener for the controversial policy which means leaving you on your own telling swappers your seat is not available for swaps.
2) Their cabin crew is already very busy during boarding and doesn't exactly have time to walk each passenger to their seat and ensure they pick one assigned to them.

Not my problem. Some Irish people are very soft and will give in. I do myself on occasion I am not an ogre.

But I always pay for priority (leaves the hand luggage guaranteed in the overheads), and seat.

I am getting a bit Bolshie now and refuse to accommodate the skinflints who think they will beat the system. NO from me anyway. And I dislike conflict of any sort. But regarding this I will not budge.

Sorry.

Gamebred wrote: »

They should add the price of picking your seat into the fare, let everyone pay 4e or 5e and make it mandatory you buy a seat, whats a fiver extra on top of a cheap fare, they are doing return flights to spain for 160e in the height of summer absolute bargains if you ask me.

Agree, but that is not their model.

It is a love hate relationship with Ryanair.

It is generally cheap.

It flies to places that others don't

It is great for punctuality.

IMV RYR should automatically assign a seat (apart from premium) for the 2 euro and have an opt OUT, rather than an opt IN.

But that is just me.

BTW I dislike skinflints and those who always want to beat the system at the expense/comfort of others who have paid.

I will not be moved.

Being tight and a skinflint has to be up there as one of the world's worst trait in a person.

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

Agree, but that is not their model.

Yes, basically what Gamebred suggests of course makes a lot of sense in term of organisation and planning, but is just the regular airline model: each passenger has a seat allocation included as part fo their ticket (even if it is displayed as a separate fee, once it becomes mandatory for everyone the seat allocation basically becomes part of the ticket).

Low-cost airlines' business models more or less require a pricing structure with a lot of non-included extras.

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

Yes you are right. Why should seat paying passengers have to oblige those who didn't, and the airline doesn't care, they back off and leave it to the passengers to solve.

I can tell you now, I am travelling with RYR in September. If there is any hassle regarding me moving my paid for seat I will be very cross. But at the end of the day I will not move either.

There may be trouble ahead! I don't want conflict, but I refuse to sort out the seating arrangements of those who don't pay for the privilege of sitting together.

I would not even think about it as an issue in advance of travelling or worrying about what's ahead. If anyone asks me to move, it's a polite no with no further engagement or even thought about it. If they are in my seat and refuse to move, I'll be calling the staff to sort it out and not worrying a jot more about it.

Living Off The Splash wrote: »

The problem is that the Ryanair staff might not do anything about it and tell you to sit somewhere else. I think it says on the booking that the staff can ask you to move even in a paid for seat.

I had it a couple of times with the exit seats and staff have always ran the imposter. I just stand there blocking up the aisle till they move the person, then go back to reading my kindle. It's one of those situations where you meet your troubles half way, 9 times out of 10 there won't be a problem.

I don't make it an issue in advance of getting on, what if someone asks me to move, what if someone is in my seat, if it happens deal with it, otherwise don't even think about it.

Bob24 wrote: »

Well it's clearly a thing to think about it when not on board as what to do or not to do when asked to swap seat has been discussed for a few pages here. If Ryanair was flawlessly delivering the service you are paying for, these discussions wouldn't exist.

I don't think you'll find discussions around the same topic from frequent travellers with many other airlines (not even other budget airlines such as easyjet).

As in all aspects of life, people worry un necessarily over things, thinking ahead over a flight you may take in 3 months time is unhelpful.

If someone else does not want to pay 2 Euro for a seat, for whatever reason, that's their business, personally I don't get it, pay or sit where you are allocated.

You can only control what you do, not others, so if I've paid for my seat, then I'm sorted.


This is One of those don't sweat the small stuff situations.

anewme wrote: »

As in all aspects of life, people worry un necessarily over things, thinking ahead over a flight you may take in 3 months time is unhelpful.

I don't see many posts from people worrying about flights in 3 months time though. More people who have already been inconvenienced during past flights.

I don't think anyone is worried as such. Different people will have different expectations but for me it's more that once I get to my assigned seat I like to start a movie or music/reading on my iPad with noise cancelling headphones and forget about what's going on in the cabin until the plane has landed, and I don't want to be regularly bothered by people moving around the plane or asking me to swap.

acquiescefc wrote: »

Lol at this thread.
I wouldn't pay for a seat, don't care where I sit.
Chances of getting an ok seat on ryànair are 66% as I hate the middle.
If someone asks me to swap which has happened once in the last twenty, if the seat was as good I don't mind as long as ìt isn't B or E. You are supposed to sit in your assigned seat tho and the FA will tell you that.

Jesus you haven't been reading the thread.

Ryanair have been deliberately seating people in middle seats away from eachother throughout the aircraft, trying to sell aisle and window seats, so the chance of getting a good seat is much lower than 66% when you check in early. (However check in a day before and you'll probably be ok)

Fred Swanson wrote: »

But if people now wait till the day before the same thing will happen as if they checked in at the 4 day window opening.

I can see their systems crashing if a significant amount of people wait till the last minute to check in. Bang! €50 airport check in fee.

However, a few online remarks about this won't make a difference.

I also disagree that there will be a crash, as the same amount of people will still be checking in for the same flight, maybe only 40-50 who didn't pay for their seat too. Flights are spread out fairly evenly across the week so it's not like everyone will check in Monday for flights on Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday at once.

Also, even if it would, a few online remarks won't make much of a difference. You'd need newspaper headlines.

Fred Swanson wrote: »

I can see their systems crashing if a significant amount of people wait till the last minute to check in.

I'm sorry but that's nonsense!!

How did the systems ever cope in the days before online check in? When a flight load of people would be checked in in a 2 hour window!

AndyBoBandy wrote: »

I'm sorry but that's nonsense!!

How did the systems ever cope in the days before online check in? When a flight load of people would be checked in in a 2 hour window!

Yeah a few hundred people checking-in will have no impact whatsoever on their infrastructure. But still I think waiting until the very last minute on purpose is fairly stupid. Ryanair's servers could be temporarily down for whatever reasons, you internet connection might have a problem just at the wrong time, the pone you use to check-in could have a problem, etc - and if you left it to the last minute any of those things will cause you to miss your slot and have to pay for airport checkin.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease :pac:

Once the cabin crew knew you paid for a seat they should 100% leave you alone. If you were in a "random seat" then it's a bit more reasonable to ask but no one will move from a aisle/window seat to a middle seat to appease someone on a long flight

The young lad and dad were both in middle seats ,so even 1 swop was no good for them.

The mothers with 'kids' should have booked and paid for their seat to be guaranteed to be together,

I would lay odds they checked in in the 30 hour zone or at the airport.

You used to be able to change seats on Aer Lingus checkin (even free) but if there are no seats together available.....

Where AL might learn from RY is offering a better price for seats at booking stage, not the huge number of prices RY have, maybe their current structure, with an early booking discount.