A young boy who gets nervous about flying was in tears after RyanAir’s computer system gave away his specially reserved window seat to someone else.
Ryan Bandli was upset the whole way from Budapest to Manchester when he saw that a woman was sitting in the seat he had chosen.
His mother, Adi, said that the window seat, where he can lean his head against the wall, helps her “very reactive” six-year-old stay calm in the air.
She paid more when she booked her flight on Buzz, the budget airline’s Polish branch because she knew it was important for a comfortable trip.
But when Adi got on the plane, he saw that Ryan’s seat was taken by a woman. When asked, the stranger said she had been given the window seat, too, and she wouldn’t move.
‘Ryan was really upset and anxious and he cried,’ Adi told The Mirror. ‘He didn’t understand how this could happen. We sat separately and it was really stressful.’
As a consolation, he was given an aisle seat, but he spent most of the flight crying in his dad’s lap.
‘My poor child was crying. People gave him sweets and were so kind,’ Adi said.
The incident happened in August, and Adi says she’s still waiting for RyanAir to explain what happened and give her money for it.
Ryan’s seat was not double booked, the airline said. Instead, the “misunderstanding” was caused by a “single IT glitch,” the company said.
The flight was full, so there were no other window seats available for the family. This meant that they had to sit apart.
The spokesman said: ‘Buzz regrets the inconvenience caused to Ms. Bandli and her son and a member of our customer services team will contact them directly.’
Adi said that a representative told her that the problem happened because they had booked a seat near an emergency exit and Ryan was too young to sit there safely.
But Adi replied that they were definitely not put in a row near an emergency exit.
A source has reached out to RyanAir for comment.