It's definitely a revenue generating "trick"!

Regardless of how empty the flight is if you book two seats it seems that you're going to end up sitting separately unless you pay a few £ more.

Separating passengers is clearly by design. If you start a dummy booking you'll see "Sit next to friends or family" is a clearly outlined perk of paying to pick your seat rather than relying on their unfriendly allocation.

If you miss it on the booking page you'll see a nice reminder you see when you go to manage your booking and print your boarding passes - although at this stage you're not reminded that there's a cost associated with the changes!



But hey-ho, I guess they've decided that if you're willing to accept the often antisocial flight times, the horror that is Stansted, the often miserable staff and every other "quirk" associated with flying Ryanair an extra £5 or so to sit with your travelling companion is unlikely to be the deal-breaker.