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A couple of weeks ago, authorities in the United Kingdom opened an investigation into Ryanair’s seating policy for families, suggesting it wasn’t complying with regulations. While the airline insists that it has been following rules all along, the company has just updated its policies.
And of course in typical Ryanair fashion, the airline is being catty about it, saying families will likely sit in the back of the plane for free, and that it only adjusted its policy because it doesn’t want to “waste time explaining to misguided regulators how badly they misunderstand” what’s in the best interest of conusmers.
In this post:
Ryanair reluctantly updates family seating policy
A couple of weeks ago, the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) opened an investigation into Ryanair’s family seating policy.
The carrier’s old policy was that parents need to sit next to children between the ages of two and 11. Ryanair of course charges for seat assignments, but the company did make one accommodation — while parents would have to pay for their assigned seats, the airline would then offer free adjacent seat assignments for up to four children on the same reservation.
Regulators argued that this was possibly an “unfair contract term” under consumer laws, since only families had to pay for assigned seats, and not others (other passengers could simply roll the dice on the seats they get).
So that brings us to the latest update. Ryanair insists that its old and longstanding family seating policy fully complied with all relevant laws and regulations. The airline makes this argument based on the fact that it didn’t charge any fee for children to sit next to their parents (which is technically true — they instead charged only the adult). Ryanair also argues that the old policy has “given families certainty of seat allocation at the time of booking, which families have valued as much as they have valued Ryanair’s lowest fares.”
But as of June 25, 2026, adults traveling with children, who do not wish to select or pay for a reserved seat, will be advised of their free of charge seat allocation after they have checked in for their flight, as is the case on most airlines in Europe. Families opting for this random allocation of seats will likely be seated toward the rear of the cabin.
Meanwhile families who prefer to choose their seats at the time of booking will now have to pay full price for everyone to secure seats, as the airline claims this matches the policy of most other European airlines.
The airline explains that this change “responds to the desire of Europe’s regulators to stifle innovation and progress.” The airline also claims this will be revenue neutral for it.
Ryanair has completely overhauled its family seating policy
Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary of course has a lot to say
Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary is one of the most outspoken people in the airline industry, and of course he didn’t hold back in sharing his thoughts on this:
“European regulators such as the UK CMA have consistently failed consumers by ignoring blatant anti-consumer reselling of inflated air fares by unauthorised OTAs, overcharging by airport monopolies and service failures by Europe’s ATCs. Turning a blind eye to the high fares charged by airlines on routes with no Ryanair competition, the CMA has now targeted our family seating policy which has been universally embraced by consumers as the most progressive and transparent in Europe. 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.”
“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. Under our revised family seating policy, families may have to wait until after they have checked in to find out their seat allocation and are more likely to be seated at the rear of the cabin but at least the CMA will be able to claim they have done something for consumers, but sadly most consumers won’t notice.”
Bottom line
Ryanair has long taken a creative approach to its family seating policy. Regulators require airlines to allow children to sit next to their accompanying adults at no extra charge, which Ryanair sort of technically abided by — the carrier’s old policy was to charge the parent for a seat, and then let kids select seats next to them at no extra cost.
With regulators investigating the airline, the policy has now been updated. Ryanair will now assign seats for families at check-in for free, and claims families will typically end up in the back of the plane. Meanwhile the airline is eliminating its discount for family seat assignments in advance, in order to align policies with those of other airlines.
It does seem like Ryanair was taking some liberties with how it interpreted the rules. However, with the airline eliminating the discount for families assigning seats together in advance, I’m not sure everyone will view this change as positive.
What do you make of Ryanair’s seating policy update?
Conversations (19)
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AeroB13a Guest
June 26, 2026, 12:41 pm
Just because one resides in “The Land of the free”, it doesn’t mean that everything has to be …. FREE …. you get what you pay for in this world unless you are illegal.
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Scio_nescio Member
June 26, 2026, 12:18 pm
In 99% of the cases where some is being blasted by FR, they can be proud to have done the right thing! Certainly, MOL and FR are successful. But I usually find it quite disgusting how they achieve such success. Kudos to the regulators.
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George Romey Guest
June 26, 2026, 10:28 am
You decide to fly on a low end trash airline you should fully expected to be treated like trash. In turn for a dirt cheap ticket you agree not to be treated like a paying customer. It's that simple.
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Ruby The Terrier Guest
June 26, 2026, 9:53 am
On the flip side Who would want to sit next to a random child ?
Ironically Emirates on several occasions have sat an unaccompanied child next to us and asked if we could ‘keep an eye on them. ‘
We have always politely declined and said quite firmly absolutely not our responsibility!
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AC Guest
June 26, 2026, 4:54 am
Ryanair - I might invest in it, but I'll never fly it.
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Ken Kenichi Guest
June 26, 2026, 4:52 am
Implementing the new policy doesn't require getting rid of the old policy. It's all about the money for Ryanair as we all know.
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AQ Guest
June 26, 2026, 3:35 am
This is textbook, malicious compliance. The regulations are there for a reason, to protect consumers. Using this opportunity to change your policy like this undermine the reason we have these regulations to begin with, and it’s just wrong.
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Mantis Diamond
June 26, 2026, 4:35 am
Welcome to the real world, where there are always unintended consequences when governments choose to force people and businesses to do something against their will. So yes, overregulation is just wrong.
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Kevin Guest
June 26, 2026, 5:22 am
I agree with you, governments should not have to rule that airline must seat their children with their parents, as airlines should apply some decency and not force this additional fees on families "because they can". Who would want their 3 Year old seated next to a stranger????
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1990 Guest
June 26, 2026, 8:58 am
Mantis, this is sensible regulation. Quit cucking for corporate greed.
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Alan Guest
June 26, 2026, 3:13 am
All children should be in the very back.
Sounds good to me.
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Frog Guest
June 26, 2026, 2:04 am
Although I’ve sworn to never fly Ryanair, I’m actually on their side on this one. The old policy seems pretty fair (and almost generous). If the adult pays for a seat in the front, up to 4 children get to be seated in the same row for free.
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Juraj Diamond
June 26, 2026, 2:43 am
I, for one, do fly Ryanair occasionally and this is just stupid. It's like saying someone is generous because they stopped slapping you in the face.
A few years ago, Ryanair started actively breaking up group bookings and placing every member of the party in a different row. It wasn't even random, it was just coercion to make people pay to sit together. After massive backlash and regulatory threats, they then made this one accommodation...
I, for one, do fly Ryanair occasionally and this is just stupid. It's like saying someone is generous because they stopped slapping you in the face.
A few years ago, Ryanair started actively breaking up group bookings and placing every member of the party in a different row. It wasn't even random, it was just coercion to make people pay to sit together. After massive backlash and regulatory threats, they then made this one accommodation for families where only adults had to pay. This was still worse than the old way of just seating people in sequnce.
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Kevin Guest
June 26, 2026, 5:19 am
It's just disgraceful to even think it's ok to separate a 3YR old from its parent. This is clearly a forced sale and pure greed from the airline. Clearly not acceptable. And you must not be a parent to think it's ok.
Anyway, I'm not surprised as Probably the only time I've sided with O'leary is when he says the airlines should be able to re-coup EU261 costs from airports and ATC service providers when they are responsible for delays.
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AeroB13a Guest
June 26, 2026, 12:49 pm
Conversely, it is disgraceful to even think that it is OK to deprive a person from sitting in the front of the cattle class cabin, who is actually willing to pay to do so. If the parents wish to pay for the privilege of sitting forward, why expect their issue not to do so too?
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Bobby Davro Guest
June 26, 2026, 1:43 pm
But that's not the opposite of the situation- Ryanair forced folks to pay for a seat if theyre a family. There was no 'i dont care where we sit, as long as we're together' option.
They dont need to let families select any seats for free, just agree that free assigned at checkin seats will be together.
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Chris D Guest
June 26, 2026, 2:03 am
I will never understand Ryanair. Any other airline would have launched a glossy ad campaign about how they're "looking out for families" (while glossing over the fact they've been forced to). It probably would have been successful in getting bookings. Should I love or hate their "refreshing" catty directness?
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1990 Guest
June 26, 2026, 1:07 am
I’m surprised they “blasted” them, and not “slammed” them… (Ben, Buzzfeed wants its buzzwords back!)
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Alan Guest
June 26, 2026, 3:13 am
All children should be in the very back. Sounds good to me.
3
Frog Guest
June 26, 2026, 2:04 am
Although I’ve sworn to never fly Ryanair, I’m actually on their side on this one. The old policy seems pretty fair (and almost generous). If the adult pays for a seat in the front, up to 4 children get to be seated in the same row for free.
2
Ruby The Terrier Guest
June 26, 2026, 9:53 am
On the flip side Who would want to sit next to a random child ?
Ironically Emirates on several occasions have sat an unaccompanied child next to us and asked if we could ‘keep an eye on them. ‘
We have always politely declined and said quite firmly absolutely not our responsibility!
1
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