Splitting up families on flights a risk to air safety, report warns

Splitting up families on flights when they refuse to pay for allocated seating could pose a safety risk to all passengers, a report has suggested.Low-cost airlines such as Ryanair have come under fire in recent years for assigning travellers on the same booking seats in different rows - often a long way apart - unless they fork out extra. In February the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) launched an investigation after research showed that one in five travellers who don’t pay for allocated seating are split up from their friends or family. For Ryanair, the fraction is more than one in three. Now it is claimed that the practice doesn’t just inconvenience air passengers – it is dangerous.