Ryanair says it will ‘reluctantly’ allow families with small children to sit together for free in an attempt to appease British regulators who opened an investigation into the low-cost airline’s ‘unfair’ policy of making the parents or guardians of children aged between 2 and 11 pay, on average, £8 to sit beside their child.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced it was investigating Ryanair on June 11 for imposing an ‘unfair contract term’ on families, because, while the airline requires parents to sit beside their young children, they have to pay to do so.
While parents must pay for a seat reservation, all other passengers can choose whether or not to pay an additional fee to reserve a seat. This disparity could equate to an “unfair” contract term under consumer law, the CMA explained.
Every other airline flying to and from the UK also requires parents or guardians to sit with their young children, but Ryanair is believed to be the only carrier that charges extra for this.
On Thursday, Ryanair insisted that its family seating policy complies with all relevant laws and regulations, but that it was still going to change its rules because it doesn’t want to “waste its time” explaining its policy to the CMA.
Ryanair’s changes to its family seating policy are, however, still being made in the most Ryanair-esque fashion you could imagine.
If parents choose not to pay an additional seat assignment fee to sit beside their children, then Ryanair says they’ll be forced to sit at the back of the plane. Ryanair says this is because seats towards the front of the plane are considered ‘premium’ and, therefore, are sold at a premium to passengers willing to pay for seat assignments.
Until now, Ryanair has allowed parents to reserve one seat for an additional seat in order to sit together with up to four children. This policy now appears to be changing. If families want to reserve better seats at the time of booking, then they’ll have to pay a seat reservation fee for any person in the group, regardless of age.
Ryanair says the change “responds to the desire of Europe’s regulators to stifle innovation and progress.”
“Instead of promoting competitiveness and lower fares for consumers, the CMA is on a mission to force Ryanair to adopt the less transparent and less consumer-friendly family seating policy applied by most other airlines – just because it’s the industry standard,” slammed Ryanair’s chief executive, Michael O’Leary.
“We will reluctantly adjust to this industry standard as we don’t want to waste time explaining to misguided regulators how badly they misunderstand what is in the best interest of UK and Europe’s consumers,” O’Leary added.
This does appear to be a bit of an odd move from Ryanair. The airline has rarely shied away from a court battle with regulators, and will normally stand its ground in the face of legal action.
Given that the CMA publicly announced that its investigation could take many months, Ryanair could have continued with its existing policy without any issue. You have to wonder whether the airline realized that it faced losing a battle it couldn’t win, even on appeal.
That being said, this isn’t the first time in recent months that Ryanair has voluntarily made changes to its policies after regulators signalled concerns.
Last November, Ryanair was forced to soften its stance on banning paper boarding passes and forcing passengers to download a digital version on the airline’s mobile app after European regulators put the low-cost carrier on notice.
With much fanfare, Ryanair had announced that it would 100% eliminate paper boarding passes and require all passengers to download a digital pass on their smartphones via the Ryanair mobile app.
However, before the paper boarding pass went into effect, Portugal’s civil aviation authority, known as ANAC, raised its concerns that the rule could breach discrimination laws.
In response, Ryanair softened its stance on the issue, saying that as long as passengers check in for their flight online, they will still be able to pick up a paper boarding pass at the airport for free.
