Budget Travel - Ryanair-rows 2-4 kept empty "to balance aircraft" ??

Just had a grim experience on Ryanair - I am not sure whether it is the airline or the people it attracts on its' holiday sector flights.
I quote
"East Midlands/Girona return -paid £85 return-booked/paid 6 months ago.
Check in was OK - usual Ryanair 40 min queue and a delayed departure due to incoming and then a chaotic boarding with a gate swap at last minute resulting in a Berlin/Girona crossover scrum but the priority boarding worked.

Rows 2-4 kept empty - for takeoff/landing balance we were told or is it a fuel saving device?
Late departure due to delayed arrival of incoming but time caught up and landed in Girona only 10 mins late.

Return check in at Girona was horrendous.Don't PAX read luggage rules-people with 21k bags dumping contents at checkin to save the €15 per k surcharge and others repacking at counter so we had to step over open suitcases to check in.
Return flight would have been on time but delayed 20 mins due to delay in boarding 2 wheelchair passengers .
Again rows 2-4 kept empty although PAX moved forward to fill them and sit together after takeoff.
All food and most drinks finished by row 16 (even at £5 a throw) although plenty scratch cards left!
One of the FA's had serious BO problem made worse by his habit of walking down the cabin with his arms raised ,touching the sides of the locker doors!

PAX in rows 2-4 refused to return to their seats for landing and co-pilot threatened to divert to Stanstead for safety reasons "as aircraft balance was unsafe for landing at EM and the unruly PAX would be handed over to police at Stanstead".
Much grumbling but they moved back but then distress from elderly passengers who had miss heard and thought they were being diverted.

Landed (smoothly )on time although luggage took 40 mins to arrive.
Overall not a nice experience but whether it is RA fault or the type of PAX it attracts on its holiday destination flights I am not sure. But if you follow their rules ,check in on time with the correct luggage and priority boarding it generally gets you there in one piece and on time -certainly on the 16 sectors I have flown with them to date.If there was only another airline I could use to get me from my local airports to the destinations of my choice"

If the title question has already been covered I am sorry but are RA deliberately not filling their aircraft as a balance procedure , a fuel saving device or what?

I have had to move passengers from the front of the aircraft to the back for weight and balance. I have even had to refuse boarding to some passengers because of this as well and I work for a major carrier in the US.

This is on almost every Ryanair flight I have ever seen. I don't think it has anything to do with balance. Surely not EVERY Ryanair flight has balance issues..

I have had to move passengers from the front of the aircraft to the back for weight and balance. I have even had to refuse boarding to some passengers because of this as well and I work for a major carrier in the US.

Thanks for the explanation.

I've overheard them talking about "balast" (sp?) on some Barbie's Dream Jets I get to fly on a regular basis, depending on how many pax they have.

And nice to see you slumming it here in BT ;) Flying to SFO Monday, alas on the airline that is doing it's best to make WN look like all business class - US :eek:

EmailKid

Wouldn't you be a bit freaked if a spanking new 737-800 could be unbalanced by the seating of say 3 rows of passengers?

This is mostly to do with turnaround time:
Not having to clean extra rows, as they are empty
Making it easier to do the food service

And possibly :confused: to do with saving 20c per flight on fuel, leading to savings annually of €[insert a quite large number here] due to the massive number of movements.

AFAIK, this is very much to do with the aircrafts balance, or more accurately, the aircrafts 'Centre of Gravity' (CofG), which has to be within narrow limits for take off and landing, and is affected by the passenger, cargo and fuel load.

Ryanair only flies 737-800's, which are stretched version of the 737, and are more sensitive to CofG issues then the older smaller models.

Aparently Ryanair normally only load all of the luggage into the front cargo hold, and use the rear cargo hold mainly only when the front hold is full. This saves them money on ground handling, but it pushes the CofG forward.

They block out rows of the cabin near the front to push the passenger weight more towards the rear of the aircraft, which helps to balance the aircraft out.

Other airlines adjust the CofG by more carefully positioning the cargo and baggage in the holds, but even then they sometimes have to move passengers to balance the CofG. They sometimes do this without the passengers even knowing by controlling the seat allocation at check-in, but obviously with Ryanair's 'free for all' boarding, they have no change of doing this.

Wouldn't you be a bit freaked if a spanking new 737-800 could be unbalanced by the seating of say 3 rows of passengers?

3 rows of passengers could easily weigh 1.25 tons, or more, so I'd imagine thats enough to affect the aircrafts trim ;)

Perhaps those rows are being left open to accommodate the "special services" that Ryanair is offering to passengers as was mentioned in a recent press conference and discussed in detail in a different thread.

Perhaps those rows are being left open to accommodate the "special services" that Ryanair is offering to passengers as was mentioned in a recent press conference and discussed in detail in a different thread.

I flew to Derry with them yesterday. Fenced off rows at the front AND the back: but this probably has more to do with operational restrictions than Mr O'Leary's promised extras :(

Perhaps those rows are being left open to accommodate the "special services" that Ryanair is offering to passengers as was mentioned in a recent press conference and discussed in detail in a different thread.

It's now a surcharge to sit at the front of the bus to be serviced, I mean get the extra services :D.

I remember, that Ryanair use the free rows really for balances the aircraft.

There was also a nice story, because the mayor from Salzburg didn´t want sit back on his seat and wanted to sit in this free row and after landing the police was waiting for him.

I recently took two flights on AirAsia, and they too blocked rows for "weight and balance issues" -- just row 2 on one flight, and rows 2-4 on another. I believe AirAsia flies 737s as well, so the earlier explanations seem plausible.