Ryanair seating

[Playbill]

My partner had to go to Germany the other day. Her hotel and flight were made for her and the flight was with Ryanair - a company I always maintained I would never fly with. It was arranged at the last minute and she asked me come with her. But the website should there were no seats left. Nevertheless, she said come with her to the airport and perhaps there will be a cancellation. There was not, so I stayed in the UK. She called later to tell me there had been six empty seats on the flight that passengers were warned not to use. No explanation given. I mentioned this to a friend, and he said he had experienced the same thing on a Ryanair flight. Why turn down my custom (think it would have cost about £200) when there were seats? Not going to bother phoning them at some stupid rate to ask.

[dzug2]

Maybe the seats were unsafe and needed repair? Broken seat belts for example. That's the most likely explanation if they were specific seats.

The other possibility (less likely) is that there is a minimum crew/passenger ratio and that to fill these seats they would have needed an extra member of staff they either didn't have or didn't want to pay for.

[jno]

I was reading the other day that if you have 201 passengers you need an extra staff member, so they stop at 200. Ryanair are currently negotiating with a Chinese manufacturer to produce a 200-seat aircraft (the Boeings they often use have only 190, and that's not enough)

[Whickerman]

It's the two rows behind the front seats, rows 2-4. They always - always - cordon these off.

It is, believe it or not, to do with how they load theplane (including the hold). The centre of gravity of teh plane is affected and by leaving these empty the speed of turnaround is vastly increased.
I'm trying to get you a link.

[Whickerman]

Can't getthe definitive answerfrom an official site - have a look here:
http://www.google.ie/...969a&biw=1280&bih=632

[Playbill]

Thank you all for the replies.

Whickerman, Your explanation is similar to what my friend told me: the front two rows were blocked off. Anyway, I'm going to pick her up from the airport later today so I might have an opportunity to ask someone there.

Thought at first I was not allowed on because they had somehow heard me criticising the company! :)

[KJN]

Wow if they did not let on anybody who had criticised Ryanair they would not have any passengers at all. haha