Seat Allocation
It disgusts me to even post on the latest change in which Ryanair allocates its seats at check-in.
They'll argue the policy has not changed... which technically it hasn't but it's clear from their seat maps and the sudden emergence of people being allocated rows apart that some kind of system internally has changed the way in which seats are being allocated. Now all the middle seats are allocated first, rather than allocating from the center outwards. The result... families being split up unnecessarily unless they pay for seats!
With experience in ground operations I have never known even Ryanair to do anything so indecent and shambolic as this!
They have given no regard it would seem to the fact that...
- Passengers will just swap seats under their own account, causing chaos and unnecessary disruption during boarding
- Groups that will typically have a lead traveler maybe carrying the travel docs/boarding passes of all those in the group (meaning some pax may not have their boarding pass to hand when embarking the aircraft... possibly through the opposite door)
- The separation of passengers is likely going to attribute to a reduction of in-flight sales, where groups of friends or family sat together are more likely to make more substantial purchases (again only the "lead passenger" may possess any method of payment)
- Passengers will be clogging aircraft cabin aisles/airside ramp areas on arrival whilst waiting for their travel group
And a big pitfall also is that even if you were willing to pay to reserve seats after being separated at check-in, there's barely any adjacent seats left to choose as all the middle seats have been allocated!!
Never mind also if god forbid there were an emergency evacuation... 100+ passengers I'm sure trying to reunite with loved ones I imagine would work wonders for a max. evacuation time of 90 secs.
Would not be surprised if this becomes something that requires something like CAA intervention if nothing else. I think it should become a requirement for airlines to allocate groups together whenever possible, only separating in exceptional circumstances.
Regardless of their solid business strategy, financial performance, commendable improvements in recent years and as an airline I personally admire, they have made a big error or judgement and have gone way too far this time
I am totally and utterly disgusted by the whole thing... This will not last I guarantee, things will get too nasty I'm sure in one way or another for the airline to contend with!
Anyway, rant over! I'm sure I won't be the only one complaining though...