What I've never understood is that this is against CAA rules. A child under 12 should be seated no more than separated by an aisle or one row!! Can you imagine a child got injured for any reason the claim against FR!! A
Does this CAA rule actually apply to Ryanair, which operates under IAA rules. While Ryanair seats children with their parents whenever possible, I am not sure it is because of CAA rules.
At booking time 1 day before an almost full flight you should be still able to get 2 seats together.................... if travelling with a child under 12.
Everybody will not have checked in.
Try a dummy booking for any flight tomorrow. Even with 15 empty seats, these are often scattered all over the aircraft as single seats. That is the new algorithm.
On this flight, there are 12 empty seats all over the place (sorry, I cannot get them all on one screen):
You cannot book A child under 12 on a flight without booking a seat with adult beside them...........
Yes, just try. You can book a flight with a child under 12 and be forced to book a seat very far apart. It is then left to the cabin crew to sort it out, but you are not getting the seat you are paying to get assigned.
What confuses me even more is the fact I knew someone flying BA Club World, their travelling companion was allocated a seat completely different to where he was sitting.
You can still select any available seat when online checkin open.
Same applies for Emirates as well and a number of other flag carriers.
Emirates allows you to select a seat at checkin and does not purposely seat you far away from travelling companions.
Not to forget EasyJet, Jet2 also follow the same practice as Ryanair.
EasyJet and Jet2 seats people together when reasonable and possible (just like the old Ryanair algorithm).
The real innovation with the new Ryanair system is that it will purposely seat you far apart even when fully normal seats are available. If you are assigned 11B, it may seat your travelling companion in 26B even if 11A, 11C, 11D, 11E and 11F are all available.