# Ryanair first six rows closed off due to "balancing the plane."



## BOXtheFOX (8 Apr 2008)

Last weekend on the way back from Lubeck with Ryanair we were not allowed to sit in the first six rows nor the last four rows of the plane due to "balance" issues.  This has been Ryanair's excuse for practically every flight that I have flown with them. However on this occassion there was a problem with the plane and after about an hour we had to disembark because the pilot was having a problem with the hydraulics. Eventually the problem with the hydrolics was sorted and we were allowed back on the plane after about an hour. However as we were boarding we were told to sit anywhere on the plane so that we could take off as soon as possible. How come there was a problem with "balance" when we first boarded the plane but no problem when we boarded the second time?


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## quinno (8 Apr 2008)

Maybe the hydraulic issue related to trimming the airctaft? Pilots pump fuel through out the aircraft during flight to counter the effects of both the fuel being used up, as well as shifting centre of gravity.


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## Guest127 (8 Apr 2008)

last few flights with ryanair they didn't do this, thought I have seen it on previous trips. These flights were pretty much full so they knew that they were going to  be occupied anyway.


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## 16024 (8 Apr 2008)

Marginal (if any) difference in balancing weight throughout cabin.  It saves the crew time and effort cleaning unused rows of seats.


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## annR (8 Apr 2008)

To be honest I would be very worried if filling up a few seats down the back would affect the centre of gravity of an aeroplane - sounds like rubbish to me!


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## moe1013 (8 Apr 2008)

Nope, not rubbish. The 737 can be sensitive to trim if not particularly full. Ryanair take the lazy way out by not bothering to check how many passengers they have coming. By blocking off the seats they can get a "safe" if not particularly accurate condition for take off. 

You should be able to move into those seats after take off, but most of the Ryanair hosties haven't a clue and just say no.

They would rather save 30 seconds then give you a bit more room...but you're not surprised about that though, are you?


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## Lauren (8 Apr 2008)

Think it also depends on cargo and where it is placed in the hold too. Have had this happen on Aer Lingus and SAS too. Its common...


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## runner (9 Apr 2008)

Definately a balancing act. Was over and back to Paris wekend and they had rows 2/3 closed on both flights. It cuases the hostesses endless hassle to implement this, as people try and sit there anyway, so its unlikely to be contrived.


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## Sunny (9 Apr 2008)

Asked a Ryanair pilot about this before and he just laughed. Said it has nothing to do with balance or safety of an aircraft. Said he wouldn't fly the plane if the difference between flying safely or not was not allowing passengers to sit in certain rows. He said only very very rarely does seating of passengers become an issue on certain planes and he has never seen it especially on Ryanair who don't carry cargo. He said it is purely a cabin crew decision and the fact that they prefer to leave the top rows empty for whatever reason. Don't know what's true but thats what I heard.


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## gianni (9 Apr 2008)

Sunny said:


> He said it is purely a cabin crew decision and the fact that they prefer to leave the top rows empty for whatever reason. Don't know what's true but thats what I heard.


 

The cabin crew like to get some privacy during the flight - the best way to do this is to 'hide' at the top of the plane. This isn't easy to do if there are people sitting in the top few rows, particularly on the entrance side of the plane. It's probably easier for them to have all the passengers sitting in as concentrated an area as possible. Any flights where I've seen this done it's frequently the case that people change to these seats during the flight and nothing is said to them. 

I would be very surprised to hear that the distribution of the passengers would have anything other than a minor effect on the aircraft's performance.


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## spinal_tap (9 Apr 2008)

gianni said:


> The cabin crew like to get some privacy during the flight



BINGO — didn't Channel Four do an undercover investigation into Ryanair about two years ago. This was one of the findings, there is no reason for them blocking off those rows, but apparently flight attendants liked to get a bit of kip on flights and wanted privacy.


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## Peeete (9 Apr 2008)

Planes have been designed to fly with any distribution of people. What next with Ryanair - weighing people, and keeping the heavier people on the flight evenly distributed?


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## runner (9 Apr 2008)

Not sure privacy is the issue.
I sat in row 1, on both legs of journey, as these seats were available.
It was rows 2 & 3 that were closed.


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## moe1013 (9 Apr 2008)

Sorry folks, while the cabin crew like it,the reason is for trim of the aircraft. Lots of the crew have no idea why they do it.Due to the free seating policy of Ryanair they have to do this up to a certain number of passengers. Thats why latecomers often get them, as they have found out how many punters are joining them at that stage. 

Very crude from an aviation perspective but I suppose it's safe.


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## Perplexed (10 Apr 2008)

You should try flying to the Aran Islands. They weigh you before you board to get the balance right! I know it's a small plane for 5 passengers but I guess it's the same reason.


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## BOXtheFOX (11 Apr 2008)

But.....When we reboarded the plane we were allowed to sit anywhere, yet an hour earlier we were told, sorry ordered, not to!


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## soy (11 Apr 2008)

as explained earlier.....




moe1013 said:


> Ryanair take the lazy way out by not bothering to check how many passengers they have coming. By blocking off the seats they can get a "safe" if not particularly accurate condition for take off.



by the time you reboarded, they knew the exact passenger numbers


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## BOXtheFOX (12 Apr 2008)

I'm not sure about that. I would often hear one of the cabin crew call out a number say, 109 then walk down the cabin and do a head count to match the 109 figure. So at some point they know the number of people that will be boarding the plane. I don't really understand how they could not know the numbers that will be boarding the plane?


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## z109 (12 Apr 2008)

BOXtheFOX said:


> I'm not sure about that. I would often hear one of the cabin crew call out a number say, 109 then walk down the cabin and do a head count to match the 109 figure. So at some point they know the number of people that will be boarding the plane. I don't really understand how they could not know the numbers that will be boarding the plane?


Because they generally don't do check-in. They have a passenger name list of who is supposed to be on the plane (a printout) and they scratch the names off it. They do a count of passes handed in at the gate and a headcount on the plane to make sure that everyone who passed the gate is boarded.

If anyone knows the legal minimum that has to be done at the airport, that is what Ryanair will do.


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## harvey (28 Apr 2008)

Especially annonying if there are only single seats left for parents with children.


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## BOXtheFOX (29 Apr 2008)

Flying from Majorca yesterday and rows two and three were closed but the rest were open. Nice flight though, plenty of air conditioning on, unlike other recent journeys where it seemed to be operated sparingly? Flight path took us via Waterford for some unknown reason?


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## so-crates (29 Apr 2008)

I have spent many years flying with Ryanair and I only noticed this particularly habit in relatively recent times (as in within the last five years). The very first time I saw it, they had not only blocked off the first six rows but had put a sign up indicating they were reserved for disabled passengers ... needless to say none of these ever showed up. While I can appreciate that weight distribution on a plane is a relevant concern and that RyanAir's approach leaves them little control over how the weight is distributed, I am inclined to suspect that this isn't the primary concern... If 2 or 4 rows at the front are all that need to be blocked off to ensure that the plane is balanced then I am either terribly worried by the habit of other users of Boeing planes who are placing the lives of all those Business Class passengers they seat at the front of the plane in terrible danger or I suspect that the reason is that it effectively reduces the cabin size and makes the 25 minute turn-arounds easier to achieve!!


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## mickman (29 Apr 2008)

it prob has somethign to do with saving fuel - u know the way ryanair are. i would never again travel with them i dont care how cheap they are . i dont like their service, i hate the way they start saying last call for a flight when its not leaving for another hour and their pilots will take off and land during any kind of weather just to get their on time bonus. never again


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## ClubMan (29 Apr 2008)

Sunny said:


> Asked a Ryanair pilot about this before and he just laughed. Said it has nothing to do with balance or safety of an aircraft.
> 
> ...
> 
> He said only very very rarely does seating of passengers become an issue on certain planes


Sounds like he was contradicting himself a bit there?



Peeete said:


> Planes have been designed to fly with any distribution of people. What next with Ryanair - weighing people, and keeping the heavier people on the flight evenly distributed?





Perplexed said:


> You should try flying to the Aran Islands. They weigh you before you board to get the balance right! I know it's a small plane for 5 passengers but I guess it's the same reason.


Yeah. That happened the time I took an _Aer Arann _flight from _Inverin _to the _Arann Islands _a few years back. It was a small c. 8-10 seater (_Cessna_?) plane. And they had to arrange the bags carefully too and even send some on a later flight.


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## ClubMan (29 Apr 2008)

mickman said:


> it prob has somethign to do with saving fuel - u know the way ryanair are. i would never again travel with them i dont care how cheap they are . i dont like their service, i hate the way they start saying last call for a flight when its not leaving for another hour and their pilots will take off and land during any kind of weather just to get their on time bonus. never again


Yeah - I'm sure that serving the customer by having flights take off and land on time has nothing to do with it and that every other airline grounds plans when the weather is a bit inclement...


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## Green (29 Apr 2008)

BOXtheFOX said:


> Last weekend on the way back from Lubeck with Ryanair we were not allowed to sit in the first six rows nor the last four rows of the plane due to "balance" issues. This has been Ryanair's excuse for practically every flight that I have flown with them. However on this occassion there was a problem with the plane and after about an hour we had to disembark because the pilot was having a problem with the hydraulics. Eventually the problem with the hydrolics was sorted and we were allowed back on the plane after about an hour. However as we were boarding we were told to sit anywhere on the plane so that we could take off as soon as possible. How come there was a problem with "balance" when we first boarded the plane but no problem when we boarded the second time?


 
I dont know that much about the technical aspects of aviation but to get back to the OP if you have a concern you should ring the Irish Aviation Authority...www.iaa.ie.. they should be able to give you a definitive answer to this...


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## minion (29 Apr 2008)

I've been told (by someone i believe actually does know the truth) that The reason they do it is indeed profiteering.  Ryanair have been chargeing for seat selection, but cant get enough people to take it up to make as much as they would like.  By making the number of available seats as low as they can on a flight, they make it more likely that families and couples will have to split up into different seats when they get on the flight.
This in turn "encourages" these customers and people who are watching them, to pay extra to select their seats the next time in order to make sure they can sit together.  Therefore making Ryanair more money.


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## so-crates (29 Apr 2008)

minion said:


> I've been told (by someone i believe actually does know the truth) that The reason they do it is indeed profiteering. Ryanair have been chargeing for seat selection, but cant get enough people to take it up to make as much as they would like. By making the number of available seats as low as they can on a flight, they make it more likely that families and couples will have to split up into different seats when they get on the flight.
> This in turn "encourages" these customers and people who are watching them, to pay extra to select their seats the next time in order to make sure they can sit together. Therefore making Ryanair more money.


 
Uh minion, Ryanair do not do pre-boarding seat selection... I think you might be thinking of Aer Lingus and FlyBe and several other operators flights with empty front rows because they charge extra for the privilege of sitting there.


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## Mpsox (1 May 2008)

A colleague of mine told me that they do this if the plane isn't full to save fuel. Seemingly, if the weight of the plane is centralised over the wings and not all at the front or back, the engine effort required is less and it saves fuel. No idea if it is true or not, but it sounds sensible
Alos heard of a Belgian airline that said it it going to deliberately fly a couple of miles slower and arrive 1-2 minutes later then scheduled as this will save them €1m in fuel per annum


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## minion (1 May 2008)

so-crates said:


> Uh minion, Ryanair do not do pre-boarding seat selection... I think you might be thinking of Aer Lingus and FlyBe and several other operators flights with empty front rows because they charge extra for the privilege of sitting there.



Sorry, meant Priority boarding didnt go so well.  Seat selection is coming soon.


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## GoldCircle (3 May 2008)

There can be a very very minor fuel saving made if an aircraft is balanced absolutely perfectly, but it is generally so small that no one bothers shifting 12 or 18 passengers. Some machinery fares better than others.

Longer thinner planes (e.g. MD80 with rear mounted engines) have greater balance/trim sesnitivities that shorter wing mounted planes such as the 737-800.

For a 737-800 to have significant balance issues based on a few rows worth of passengers would be absolutely unthinkable. 

It could be that Ryanair crams passengers in to the middle to save a euro or two (done on so many million flights per year, that's a saving of note), but it is more likely to do cabin operations (easier to sell over-priced junk to the pax) and faster turnaround (less cleaning) - both of which provide more significant returns.


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## brodiebabe (4 May 2008)

Paul Kilduff indicates in his book "Ruinair" that it aids the cabin crew when passeners are all seated together as is means they can intensively and quickly hawk more items to the passengers.  


It's sure to help the speed of the clean up and make the turn arounds quicker.


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## jryan (4 May 2008)

If a flight is underbooked, Ryanair can close off a number of rows and boost their occupancy percentage & keep investors happy.


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## europhile (5 May 2008)

Makes it quicker to clean the plane if there are fewer rows to concentrate on.


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## jryan (6 May 2008)

*Ryanair's passenger stats up, load factor down*

              Tuesday, 6 May 2008 10:55           
                          Ryanair said it carried 4.72 million passengers in April, a 15% increase on the same time last year, thanks to its growing route network.
  However, Ryanair said its load factor - a measure of how well an airline is filling seats on its planes - was 79% last month, down from 83% a year earlier. 

  The airline said the load factor in April 2007 was boosted by Easter, which fell in March this year.




Above article highlights load factor issue.


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## so-crates (6 May 2008)

jryan said:


> If a flight is underbooked, Ryanair can close off a number of rows and boost their occupancy percentage & keep investors happy.


 
I sincerely doubt that load factor is measured by how cramped passengers are  The seats still exist and are available for sale up to a very short time before take off (probably something like 45 minutes). If they don't sell they can be blocked off but they still count as empty seats for the calculation of passenger load factor.


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