A mum says her son was left in floods of tears after their window seat was 'double booked' by an airline and a fellow passenger refused to move.
Ryan Bandli, six, and who is an anxious flyer, was travelling to Manchester Airport on a Ryanair flight from Budapest with his dad and mum Adi.
She had paid extra to reserve a window seat and two next to it on the plane run by the budget airline's subsidiary Buzz, as she says sitting by the window helps him to remain calm.
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However, when they boarded the plane in the Hungarian capital they found a woman, who had an identical seat reservation, sitting in the window seat. Despite being asked she refused to move, prompting the flight attendants to usher Ryan to an aisle seat.
Adi, who said her son is "very reactive" and struggles in stressful situations, told the Mirror the flight attendant had "begged them" to give their reserved seat up.
Ryanair insist the seat was not sold twice, but that the issue came about because of a "IT glitch" and as the flight was fully booked there were no other window seats available. They refunded Adi the reservation cost.
However, Adi says her son was reduced to tears and spent the entire flight "upset and anxious" as a result of the error. "Ryan was really upset and anxious and he cried," she said.
"He didn't understand how this could happen. We sat separately and it was really stressful."
"How can something like this happen?" she added.
The debacle occured as the family were flying into Manchester, to get home to Stoke-on-Trent. Knowing how nervous flying made Ryan, Adi forked out for three different seat reservations to ensure that they'd all be sitting together.
Failure to pay for a specific seat on a Ryanair flight - which typically cost between £15 and £30 - means you can end up separated from your party and in the middle seat.
"Ryan likes to sit next to the window," Adi explained. "It calms him down a bit and he likes to lean his head against the wall."
While the discovery of someone else in your seat may be little more than an inconvenience for some, Adi said that for Ryan it was very stressful.
"My poor child was crying. People gave him sweets and were so kind," Adi said.
Since landing Adi has been pushing Ryanair for an explanation and compensation. She claims the airline rejected the request and told her that the seat was given to someone else as it was by an emergency exit.
"The CAA requires that UK airlines have procedures to ensure that customers are seated where, in the event that an emergency evacuation is required, they may best assist and not hinder evacuation from the aeroplane," a Ryanair employee wrote to Adi.
"Only those customers who appear reasonably fit, strong and able to assist the rapid evacuation of the aeroplane in an emergency should be allocated seats that permit direct access to emergency exits."
Under the rules, children are not considered suitable passengers to sit by the exit. Adi says they were not sat in an emergency exit row.
She has also questioned why they were able to book seats in the first place, and why they weren't allocated a row with a window seat elsewhere.
Referring to the company's Polish subsidiary, a spokesperson for Ryanair said: "This Buzz passenger’s seat was not sold twice; this misunderstanding was as a result of an isolated IT glitch.
"Unfortunately, as the flight was fully booked, there were no other window seats available. Buzz regrets the inconvenience caused to Ms. Bandli and her son and a member of our customer services team will contact them directly."
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