I've taken a number of Ryanair flights this year. Assigning the middle seats to non-paying passengers backfires sometimes. I booked tickets with my girlfriend.

I've taken a number of Ryanair flights this year. Assigning the middle seats to non-paying passengers backfires sometimes. I booked tickets with my girlfriend. Almost 50% of the seats were still available (this was a month before the flight), but all the middle seats were taken. We wanted to pay for seats beside each other, but that wasn't possible, because they gave away all the middle seats. When there are three seats on each side of the aisle, that means no two seats are available beside each other. So, we didn't pay, we just took the random seats, and then asked people to switch after we boarded. We probably could have paid for a window and aisle seat, then asked the middle person to happily switch, but if we're paying for seats, we shouldn't have to do that.