Ryanair Passive Aggressively Changes Family Seating Policy, Blasts Regulators

Key Points:

• The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigated Ryanair’s family seating policy, questioning whether charging only parents for seat assignments while offering free adjacent seats for children was an unfair contract term under consumer law.
• Ryanair maintained that its previous policy complied with regulations, emphasizing that children sat next to adults at no extra charge, and argued that families valued the certainty of seat allocation at booking.
• As of June 25, 2026, Ryanair updated its policy: families who do not pay for seat selection will receive free seat assignments after check-in, likely toward the rear of the plane, while families wanting to choose seats at booking must pay full price for all passengers.
• Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary criticized regulators for targeting the airline’s family seating policy instead of addressing other consumer issues in the industry, describing the policy change as reluctantly adopting a less consumer-friendly industry standard.
• The policy update aligns Ryanair with other European airlines but removes the previous discount for families booking seats together in advance, a move that may not be viewed positively by all consumers.