Just thought I'd add my experiences to this one.
I have flown Ryanair on several occassions now and never had a problem with them, you just have to obey their rules, its not hard. Also regarding boarding Ryan air have when I have flown with them always anounced boarding of priority boarders and people with young children first. So in Ryanairs defence the family with the child should of been ready for boarding at the gate near the front of the queue, I'm not suggesting the women who finally moved was in the right, just trying to defend Ryanair.
With regard to other pax being annoying on flights I encountered it myself on a recent longhaul trip returning to the UK. The first one was a pax who moved from his own seat, about 3 hours into a 10 hour flight, into a free seat in front of me. This wasn't a problem, he the preceded to recline his seat fully, this again wasn't a problem. The problem arose while and after having an inflight meal about 4 hours out. This bloke, and he wasn't British, didn't return his seat to the upright position while he ate although he sat upright the whole time, this meant for me to eat I either had to sit upright cramped up or reclined and uncomfortable to eat. After the meal he sat back but the proceded to figit the whole way while I was trying to watch the in flight entertainment in the back of his seat. Around this point he also for some reseaon tried to recline the empty seat next to him, in front of my girl friend, at which the two of use lent forward onto it to stop him.
On the same flight we had someone sat next to the window over the wing then 3 spare seats and then me and my girlfriend. This bloke had a fasination with opening the blinds (on the left hand side on a transatlantic flight) and looking out of the window. This caused us to be blinded by sunlight bouncing off the wing and entering the cabin. We asked cabin crew if they could ask him to stop which they did. This unfortunatley just turned this middle aged bloke into a naughty school kid. For the last hour or so he kept snatching cheeky looks out the window or partly opening the blind, thus blinding us every time.
To cap the trip off for our connecting flight I was assinged a window seat having put up with aisle seats on 5 previous sector on the trip I was looking forward to a bit of a change only to board the plane to find some bloke sat in it. I ended up sitting on the aisle again and my girlfriend sat in the middle next to this bloke. He was sat as wide legged as possible taking up room where my girlfriends legs were meant to be and proceded to fall asleep!
Being fairly reserved as we are the two of us complained only once about the whole episode and that only seemed to bring out the naughty boy in a middle aged man.
At the end of the day the nightmare pax are out there you just have to deal with them. We took 6 flights and only encountered problems on 2.
Anyway at the end of the day what point is there getting worked up about it these pains in the neck are only in our lives for a short space of time. Plus it gives me at least something to talk about on here
