Selecting a seat when booking a flight has become a total habit of mine. Whenever I’m presented with the seat map, I go ahead and pick where I want to sit. Luckily my frequent flyer status with British Airways means it’s usually free.
When I fly Aer Lingus or Ryanair I also select a seat, which means paying for it. Recently I made a flight booking with Ryanair and was going to select a seat when I realised how silly that would be.
Why Is That Silly?
Quite frankly, it was going to be a complete waste of money. I booked a ticket on the new service from Kerry to Dublin and when presented with the seat map, I started looking at where I might like to sit.
Overall Thoughts
It’s very weird for me not to have a seat assigned well in advance of a flight. In this case, it’s totally silly to spend the extra cash on this, and so I have not.
What happened on the actual flight itself? Did they allocate me a middle seat on an empty plane or did I get a normal seat for the flight? You can find out right here in the review.
What do you think of Ryanair’s seat prices? Do you pay or not? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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The equivalent to this in the US that I have flown is Spirit. The way that their seats work if you don’t pay ahead of time, is that the earliest check-ins start at the back of the plane and as the seats fill up with other people checking in, the seats move up towards the front. I am not sure how the middle seat assignment works. If it gets to an empty row. The last time that I flew them, I checked in at the airport about an hour before my flight and got an aisle seat towards the middle of the plane.
I know that the post below is two years old, but one thing to watch out on Southwest is if the flight originated in a different city and you are getting on at an intermediate stop. I know that I have been on a flight that went BWI-STL-LAS and over 100 people stayed on the plane in STL to go to LAS. If you were boarding in STL, even the first one to board there, 100 seats would have already been occupied. Also, if you are staying on in that situation, you can change to a better seat before they let the new passengers board.
That makes sense when it comes to Spirit, though it sort of seems to incentivise checking in as late as possible if you don’t select a seat. Interesting!!
I also was unaware Southwest had flights where there was an intermediate stop and people stayed on board. That is something I never expected and good to add to the brain database. Thank you for that!
As if there are no tall people in the world. Seat selection is needed for tall people. The random seat will never go to the seat with additional space. So keep your “silly” for yourself and think again.
Of course the random seat won’t go to the ones with additional space. Some tall people don’t even choose those seats… the point is, with 171 of 189 seats being identical, why would you pay for any of those? That would be silly.
I’ve flown I think at least 20 times on Ryanair and never paid for a seat since I figure most Ryanair flights are less than 2 hours so I’m ready for anything. I can’t recall ever being stuck in a middle seat either.
That’s good to know! I remember people reporting that if they didn’t buy I seat, they got sat in a middle seat all the time. I’ll see when it comes time for my flight and report back. Thanks for that!
With that many seats open, a wise choice. Having said that…when I fly Southwest in the US I always buy the Early Bird check-in as I like to have a real choice with their open seating. Then again, most times I’m flying WN on a connection for at least a 3-4 hour itinerary. But in May flying STL-MKE-STL (1 hour plus each way) I opted for the Early Bird anyway which was a wise choice as my return MKE-STL was continuing on to Phoenix (major hotspot) and it was quite a full flight. I sat near the back to let the connecting pax get off first as STL was my final destination and I had a bag checked so I knew I would have to wait a bit for it to come down the claim. Plus…no seat mates!
Those of us who are courteous travelers do this for others, though we are rarely credited for our thoughtfulness.
Very true, you usually only hear about the people who are not courteous. You know, I’ve never flown with Southwest. They do a fantastic job and have loads of fans, but you never really hear about them. They just do what they do, do it well and get on with it. And make money! I think that’s a very good thing indeed.