Ryanair seat allocation algorithm
 

According to Lucian's useful website*, seats on Ryanair are/were allocated in this order, from A to F:

33, 20, 19, 22, 15, 24, 12, 26, 10, 28, 8, 30, 18, 21, 14, 23, 11, 25, 9, 27, 29, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 17, 16, 31, 32

This matched my experience and it was possible to predict which seat you would get by checking the seat plan before check-in to see which seats were still available to be purchased.

I now believe it to have changed so that seats B or E are allocated to solo passengers not paying for seat allocation.

Any thoughts?






*http://flights-blog.lowcostroutes.co...at-on-ryanair/

Initial thought is you were allocated a centre seat when you didn't expect one :D

You can almost always buy a seat from €2.

If it is so important that you get a particular seat that you keep coming back constantly, waiting to check-in until you think you are next in line for that seat - why not just pay the €2 and save yourself the hassle???? :confused::confused::confused::confused:

Yes, and I noticed 2A, 3A, 4A, 5A, 6A all empty yet B and C in each row were occupied

Because I've been waiting for the €13 or €15 seats!

Maybe I'm spoiled on my FR routes then!!! €13 is "Front Row Seat" level pricing for me! (Which I incidentally consider the worst seats in the house. I hate rows with no under-seat storage....particularly on FR where the lack of seat pockets really means you do need a bag to hold your sundries.

I have noticed this too...only in the last week.

Not true.

As a solo traveller, I always check in as late as possible (mere hours/minutes before departure) and always get a window or aisle seat in either the first few rows (most likely) or the last few rows, allowing quick and easy boarding.

It makes sense for Ryanair to keep the best seats to give away as late as possible. For example, why keep seat 15B until the end as no-one ever would pay last minute for this, while some might still do for 3C?

My experience is that they are screwing you over when you check in as solo traveller on the earliest of occasions, giving bad seats in the hope next time you will pay extra.

i checked in for a flight yesterday for monday, solo traveller, on business only 2 hour flight so didn't pay for a seat and got 10A. So no middle seat for me

just checked in for weds return, on 9C so i think the above theory is pretty wrong

it also appears the algorithm is now out of date.

A colleague who is on the same flight just checked in (a day after me) and she is in 24D

It seems Ryanair is now operating a policy of deliberately separating families and travel companions in order to generate revenue from paid seating options.
https://www.google.it/amp/www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/ryanair-flights-middle-seats-assigned-passengers-pay-reserve-changed-seating-policy-a7750581.html%3Famp

Good to see Simon Calder is onto this.

We just need Lucian to update his site to show the new algorithm! Lucian, if you're reading, flyertalkers will give you lots of clicks on your site if you do this!

I think I can guess the answer to this, but once online check in has been done and seats have been allocated, will Ryanair allow seating changes at the airport?

Absolutely, but you will have to pay the €15/£15 boarding pass reissue fee, together with the fee for whichever seat you end up in. A motivated check-in agent may also try to charge the €50/£50 airport check-in fee.

So it's cheaper to just pay for the seat you want in advance.

Seating changes
 

So here is what's happening from what I can see

you now don't get the best seats last

seats are allocated b c d e from middle of plane going backwards and forwards you are then left with mostly a and f seats from 6 to 29.

30 and 31 are left till last for weight and Balalce.

The rest are random from what I can see in the 50 or so tests I have made 16 and 17 are now not left till last and it seems the yellow seats also get allocate irregularly.

i believe it's now randomised or extremely complicated

i have not been able to get the seats I would have expected on any occasion so it's pot luck now I'm afraid.

i have been given 2 times 16 and 17 rows extral leg room when yellow and light blue seats were available.

if you want a seat where you want a seat pay for it no point in complaining ryan air have found out we never paid for a seat we wanted because there algorithm was so easy to predict.

as long as people post those things instead of keeping it a secret they will find out apologies for the bad and inevitable news. It was just a matter or time

Thank you for taking the time to do those tests. For my part I don't mind paying up to 10 euro, but I enjoyed slightly gaming the system by checking in at the optimum time to get a nice seat for free.

An option now is to take your chances, but have coins/chocolate on hand to persuade people to swap seats on the plane if needed!

If you have two passengers on two seperate bookings, is it possible to check in the first passenger and then purchase an adjacent seat for the second passenger before checking them in?

its made the Irish media now..... https://www.irishtimes.com/news/irel...10490?mode=amp

Seriously this is the sort of BS that will wind up with them being more regulated. Splitting up families and the like on purpose. Doesn't take much before some politician takes up a 'popular' drive to put manners on them and mandate seat reservation be included for free with all fares.

Yes but you risk there not being a free seat next to the one allocated to the first passenger

Aer Lingus are cheaper ex dub since around mid 2016.

I used to fly Ryanair 20+ times a year, now I'm sat happy in a green plane, I sold my shares in FR at the same time. That Marketing idiot that run Tesco in to the ground is behind these changes.

Not always!

Ryanair is about half the price of Aer Lingus tomorrow on each airline's cheapest one-way DUB-AMS ticket...€106 vs €193

6 months hence - 13 December 2017 - Ryanair is cheaper too, €30 vs €35.

Just happened to me!

I have a return flight to Dublin (average flight time is 35 minutes on this route, so I didn't bother pay for seats) and checked in online for both passengers (both people on the same ticket) and on both sectors we are 15-20 rows apart... I am not impressed! :td:

Long time lurker, first time poster. Just flown MAN-NUE on a relatively quiet FR flight. Plenty of empty seats, but the computer assigned me 33A, despite there being plenty of empty B and E seats elsewhere on the plane. After completing online check-in (via the Ryanair app), there was an option to purchase a seat. This disappears two hours before departure (i.e., as soon as online check-in closes).

On departure, cabin crew were happy to allow separated people to move around the cabin. Fortunately, we had a slot delay so take-off was not compromised, but I imagine it would be if we had a tight turnaround. One interesting thing to note was that the last five rows needed exactly five people in them for weight distribution. Because of this, a man who joined his wife from further up the aircraft was told he couldn't sit in row 30, but both were able to move further up the aircraft. When the woman had left, the cabin crew had to find a volunteer from further up the plane to move back to make up for the missing pax at the back.

As such, it seems that the algorithm is far more complicated than just assigning individual travellers B and E seats. I got a window seat despite there being plenty of middle seats left, and there seems to be a link with weight distribution calculations required by flight deck crew. It must be noted that there is also an option to pay for a seat after one has checked in. No-one else has mentioned this from what I can tell so maybe it is a new thing which they are gradually rolling out.

I am due to fly NUE-BGY tomorrow on FR metal. I will be sure to report back on my experience.

My 2 flights last week were indeed chaotic for seat selection, many people were separated, including a mother and her child (he was maybe 10). It seems like they have indeed made it unpredictable compared to the old algorithm

Worth bearing in mind that they have a "load active yield passive" policy (or something) so the allocation will be on the expectation of a full plane, at least until the last couple of days.

Flew NUE-BGY today. Flight was much busier. Was allocated 14C, despite there being a splattering of B and E seats available elsewhere. Again, one had the option of paying for seats once one had checked in, so it is possible to roll the dice on the random allocation before paying if one is a solo traveller.

Flying BGY-HAM tomorrow on FR. The flight looks full, and most seats are gone already. At the back, row 31 is empty (apart from 31B). 30E and 30F are free, as is 29A. Emergency exit rows are free apart from 16B and 17B. Apart from that, there is a splattering of window and aisle seats available in the premium rows (1 to 6) - the middle seats have been filled first. It will be interesting to see how they fill these final seats. Going to leave check-in until tomorrow to try and gauge it.

Ryanair admits that it tries to 'keep window and aisle seats free' when randomly allo
 

So basically the random seats are all middle seats. Given the 3-3 layout of FR's fleet if you do not pay for seat assignment you will almost certainly be split up.
It would be better if they just came out and said this more clearly. Pay up or +90% chance you will be split up.

But why would one assume that without paying for advanced seat selection, he will be seated together?

It's been a fair assumption for years, as until the recent changes it has been the norm that pax on the same booking were assigned seats together if available.

There are good safety reasons for not splitting up families . In the event of emergency they will try and ‘regroup’ before exiting, endangering themselves and others.

Like I needed another reason to avoid FR, they just handed me one.

... and that is why it's in the CAA Document CAP 789 - Requirements and Guidance Material for Operators - Chapter 30, Section 8.

Quoting this if you've been separated from your child [by refusing to pay the family tax] seems to concentrate the minds of checkin and gate staff.

It's not law, and they can't be prosecuted for it, but it would be grounds for complaint to the CAA... which even FR would rather avoid.

Separating an adult from a child is one thing (and even that is "allowed" according to the document you provided, up to one "seat row", whatever that means), but as a family often include 2 adults, there is nothing saying those adults should seat together, and if there are 2 or more kids, they can "safely" be separated into 2 smaller groups...

It might work if you're departing the UK. (Then again, it might not - many check-in staff won't even know what the CAA is. Even for those that do, they may be more worried about the sanctions they receive for not sticking to company policy*, than any potential rap-on-the-knuckles the airline might receive weeks, months or years down the line).

Won't help anywhere else!

*Ryanair policy is that adults travelling with children under 12 must purchase a reserved seat - for €4 - so that the child(ren) can receive an allocated seat beside that adult for free (up to 4 such free child seats per adult seating payment).

Ditto, your interpretation IMO is absolutely correct - 2 adults and 2 kids can indeed be separated into 2 groups of 1AD+1CH. Like you, I think this is unfair, and believe the guidance should be stronger - families with children should be given seats in a single seat row without charge.

irishguy28, I'm inclined to agree with you. It's not a failsafe protection by any means, but I'm simply quoting it to demonstrate that there is some - albeit rather weak - regulatory guidance on this. I've seen anecdotal evidence of it being quoted by passengers separated from their children and it working; it's not a given, of course. If I were experiencing difficulty getting non-UK ground staff to understand, I'd probably state it rather more plainly and tell them "it's the law!" (not strictly true, but gets the message across)

Thanks for posting the link to the Ryanair policy - I wasn't aware of that one - but I suppose it's a fair compromise as they're only charging the adult a reduced seat selection fee and then guaranteeing that they can sit with their kids.

I fly regularly with Ryanair as they offer the best timing for my most frequently visited destinations and I am conveniently located for Stansted.

As of this year I have switched so as long as price difference is not more than £20-£30 I will book another airline (as long as timing is not too dissimilar). This has reduced the number of Ryanair flights I take by half. This makes me very happy - worth it just so I don’t have to listen to that trumpet.

the main reason I switched is their seating policy. I have realised the following, which I hope some of you find useful.

if you are travelling with a companion you stand a much higher chance of getting allocated 2 middle seats with space next to you for one companion to pay and move so you can sit with each other. If travelling solo you are much more likely to get aisle or or window so as to keep pairs of side-by-side seats open and available for when they split groups up.

Changing seat afetr check in with Ryanair
 

Quick question. Can I pay to change seat afer doing online check in? I know you can with some airlines, but not sure about Ryanair. So see what I get randomly, and then pay to change later?

Nope