The airline is being accused of deliberately splitting up passengers in an attempt to swindle more money from them.
Ryanair’s controversial “randomly allocated seating” plan has been in the news as of late, with many denying that the seat allocation is not random at all, but rather the opposite.
Following speculation made by passengers who’ve used the service, it seems that a series of investigations have been ongoing in an attempt to figure out whether Ryanair are intentionally splitting up parties travelling together in an attempt to make money.
As it stands, when travelling with Ryanair, upon booking your seat – even when you’ve booked as part of a group – you are assigned a randomly allocated seat, unless you pay extra for priority seating.
Although the airline insists that the seating process is indeed random and not manipulated, legions of customers have reported that their travelling group has been split up in a way in which they believe was intentional.
Last summer the first reports of passengers being “deliberately separated” on Ryanair flights if they didn’t pay to book a specific seat were published by The Irish Times.
The Irish Times is now reporting that the British Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) will be carrying out a review of airlines’ seating policies – including if some are purposefully splitting up passengers.
Sorry but how mad is it that Ryanair are actually denying that they changed their seating allocation system to make sure you don’t get to sit beside the person you buy tickets with. It didn’t used to happen, now it happens SO OF COURSE YOU CHANGED IT
— Eoin Corbett (@saoleoin) February 4, 2018
https://twitter.com/831Staves/status/955939254731005952
CAA Chief Executive Andrew Haines said: “We will be looking into how airlines decide where to seat passengers that have booked as part of a group and whether any airlines are pro-actively splitting up groups of passengers when, in fact, they could be sat together.
“We will not hesitate to take any necessary enforcement action should it be required at the end of the review.”
By “necessary enforcement action” it means that the CAA could force Ryanair to change its seating algorithm.
A recent survey of 10 airlines found that passengers who flew with Ryanair were most likely to be split up.
In response to the upcoming CAA review, Ryanair said that “our policy is very clear for our customers and seats can be purchased from just 2 euros and kids travelling in families get free seats.”
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