A six-year-old boy was left in tears after an "IT glitch" meant someone else was sitting in his pre-booked window seat on a flight.
Ryan Bandli, who is a nervous flyer, was heartbroken the entire flight home to Manchester, England, from Budapest after he realized a passenger was sitting in the seat he'd chosen.
His mother, Adi Bandli, told The Mirror that her son is a "very reactive" child who struggles with flying, so to keep him calm in the air, she reserves the window seat for him.
Adi revealed that she paid an additional fee for the tickets on Ryanair's Polish subsidiary, Buzz, only to discover that a female passenger was already sitting in it.
When the mother told the passenger that she'd booked the seat for her son, it became clear that the woman had also been booked onto the same window seat by Ryanair.
She then showed them her exact seat reservation and refused to move, prompting the flight attendants to allocate Ryan to an aisle seat.
"Ryan was really upset and anxious and he cried," Adi said. "He didn’t understand how this could happen. We sat separately and it was really stressful."
"My poor child was crying. People gave him sweets and were so kind. How can something like this happen?" she said, explaining that her son spent most of the flight in tears.
The mother said the incident occurred in August and said that she had paid extra for three separate pre-booked seat reservations, costing between £15 ($17) and £30 ($34).
As she paid extra knowing that Ryanair could separate families if they don't secure seating, Adi said that she is still waiting for an explanation and compensation from the airline.
She told The Mirror that the budget airline rejected her request for compensation and informed her that the seat was given to another individual because 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," an employee at the airline wrote to Adi, per the outlet.
"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," they added.
Under the rules, children are not deemed eligible passengers to sit by the exit, however, the mother refutes this and said that they were not sitting in an emergency exit row.
Furthermore, the outlet reported that the company issued a statement to the family, referring to their Polish subsidiary, and 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 has contacted them directly," they added.
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