A boy burst into tears after a passenger refused to move out of a double booked seat.
Ryan Bandli, 6, was flying home from Budapest to Manchester Airport. He was left anxious and upset at not being able to use the window seat, which helps him stay calm while flying.
Ryan's mum Adi paid to reserve the seat run by Ryanair subsidiary Buzz. But when they boarded the plane in the Hungarian capital, a woman was already sitting in the seat, reports the Mirror.
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The woman had an identical seat reservation and refused to move. The flight attendants had to usher Ryan into an aisle seat. Ryanair blamed the issue on an IT fault.
Adi, who said her son is "very reactive" and struggles in stressful situations, sai the flight attendant had "begged them" to give their reserve seat up. Ryanair has said the seat was not sold twice, but that the issue came about because of a "computer glitch", and has now refunded Adi the reservation cost.
"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."
She added: "How can something like this happen?"
The seat debacle took place at the end of August when Adi, Ryan and his dad were flying into Manchester Airport, 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 generally end up separated from your party and in the middle seat. Adi explained: "Ryan likes to sit next to the window, it calms him down a bit and he likes to lean his head against the wall."
Adi said: "My poor child was crying. People gave him sweets and were so kind." 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.
A Ryanair employee wrote to Adi, saying: "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.
"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, but 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 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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