Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary tells ‘whining’ passengers to pay extra or quit ‘whinging’ about random seating
The outspoken airline CEO blasted disgruntled passengers 'talking nonsense' on the airline's seating policy
RYANAIR chief Michael O'Leary has told angry passengers to pay extra or quit "whinging" about being seated randomly on flights.
The outspoken airline CEO blasted disgruntled passengers "talking nonsense" on the airline's seating policy.
He said: "The whining, whinging minority out there that somehow believe they should have the right to sit where they like free of charge.
"Sorry you can't because more than half of our passengers want to pay a very small fee to select their seat."
One annoyed passenger claimed that a 13-year-old girl cried for a whole flight after being split up from their family.
But O'Leary laughed it off and told RTE's Today with Sean O'Rourke: "Rubbish! Didn't happen.
"Teenage girls are crying because they are separated from somebody else?
"It has never happened on board a Ryanair flight yet. Complete rubbish."
In recent weeks, furious Ryanair passengers have accused the low-cost airline of changing its seating policy so that travellers from the same booking are split up.
Couples and people travelling in groups complain that they are being punished with separate middle seats in different rows if they don’t pay an additional charge for reserved seating.
Passengers have pay an extra from £2 to £14 on top of their air fare depending on what seats they want to reserve, or sit at random with no extra charge.
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O'Leary said: "There has been some controversy about Ryanair's seating policy which is unfortunately misunderstood.
"There is some view out there that we have changed our policy. We haven't.
"The policy is that if you want free-of-charge random seats, you'll get them. If you want to select your seat, you pay from two euros to get your seat."
He continued: "If you have chosen a random seat, you're getting a random seat, so stop whinging.
"If you want to sit beside someone else, pay £2 like 65 million of our customers do and you can sit wherever you like."
Random seating for families has led to claims that it could delay an emergency evacuation as someone would immediately would look for their family members.
But O'Leary refuted those claims.
The whining, whinging minority out there that somehow believe they should have the right to sit where they like free of charge
Michael O'Leary
He said: "In an emergency evacuation, you follow the guidelines of our cabin crew and you will mot be searching for your family, you will be getting off the plane.
"You will find your family down on the tarmac if there has been an emergency evacuation.
"The idea that we're going to have an emergency evacuation delayed when somebody is looking for their family members, by the way it's no different in any other airline.
"If you check on last, your family will be split up as well."