To not pay to choose seats but expect to sit together?

I have heard about this but never seen this happen on a flight. How do they choose who to ask to move? And why isn't it others who didn't pay?

I had a seat swap thing just the other week. Six of us travelling, four adults and two children. We'd paid to pick our seats and we were spread across the entire row - Adult, child, adult one side and the same on the other. We were asked to split up as the children wouldn't be sitting on their own anyway. I didn't want to but said I would if they paid for the seat reservations we were losing (there's never a refund, in my experience). Their answer was no so our answer was no.

We'd spent £200ish reserving seats both ways and I'm not sure why someone would think I'd be paying for their seat reservation.

I’m a single mum and when I travelled with my son when he was little I always paid for seats. I would never have risked it (my anxiety is super-high) nor expected others to shift around for me. As a result there were never any problems However, on the two precious child-free weeks I had each year and travelled on my own, I specifically remember two occasions when I booked a seat on a flight to minimise my anxiety but was pressurised into moving. It was right before take-off and people tutted and gave me cut-eye as I tried to challenge it, like I was the one delaying things and was being unreasonable.

On one occasion the child in question was about 10 and she was in floods of tears so of course i HAD to move. Shame on that mum who was prepared to play fast and loose with her daughter’s anxiety levels by getting on a plane late with no seat reservations and making it everyone else’s problem. I ended up with a seat near the loos, which was why I paid for a seat in the first place: so I wouldn’t have to sit in the sh*tty seat that clearly everyone else was avoiding. I asked the staff if I could at have a free coffee/newspaper/chocolate for the inconvenience but they said no because it came out of a different budget.

If you can afford to go on holiday abroad, you need to factor seat reservations into your budget, like travel insurance (I bet they didn’t have that either). As it goes I effectively ended up paying for these entitled, penny-pinching idiots to get the seats they wanted.

If anyone ever asks me to swap again, i’ll have my headphones on, my eyes shut and I won’t be budging. If you choose not to pay to reserve seats where it’s possible to do so, you don’t get to dictate terms. And I already feel vindicated for my future actions because I never, ever foisted this type of situation on anyone else when my son was younger. Oh and because I’ve already reached my full quota of swapping.

You're right. But the ones who haven't paid and got lucky sitting next to their girlfriend/BF/grandad/in the aisle/next to the window/the right number of rows from the toilet are already settled and don't want to swap either.

They do it much earlier when checking in. They've probably allocated seats provisionally to families before you even arrive at the airport.

I never pay. My kids are older than yours and in experience there are always enough unbooked travellers they simply allocate families with children first from the remaining unbooked seats. Ive never yet even been across aisle from either child.

Separating a two year old from their parent gives them more trouble than its worth on many, many levels. They will do pretty much anything to avoid it.

Actually, i've just did a "chat to us" specifically on easyjet and the response was "we will make sure that a child is sitting with an adult from the same booking" (see below)

OK, fair comment, but do you take on board that in the current climate with current pricing structures if the seat choice fee goes (for whatever reason) the airlines will have claw back the revenue from elsewhere?

I know some see airline profit figures up in the hundred millions and think the airlines could just give this stuff away but look further and examine the typical profit per passenger over the year and you can there's not much if anything to give away...

I wasn't referring to anyone who just got lucky, I was specifically commenting on the number of people who seem to think everyone has paid for a specific seat except the family who want to sit together.

Fair enough if you want to say people don't want to move but that is a different thing.

That's all great but you were explaining the costs of allocating seats and if people just get on and sit down there isn't a cost.

If allocating seats costs money then not allocating could make prices overall lower not higher.

No such assumption here. You're right. But the ones who haven't paid and got lucky sitting next to their girlfriend/BF/grandad/in the aisle/next to the window/the right number of rows from the toilet are already settled and don't want to swap either. So just pay. My point still stands, you just expanded my argument.

Once upon a time you just got on the plane and found a seat. It seemed to work fine.

It did....but in order to maintain a low the base price/lower the base price that all changed.

It's still all about what's sometimes known as "menu pricing" and given profit made per average passenger these days if you somehow ban seat choice fees the airlines will have to claw revenue back from another item on that menu (e.g. raise the base price).

Once upon a time you just got on the plane and found a seat. It seemed to work fine.

There will be plenty of people who haven't paid for their seat. People always seem to assume that everyone except the person who wants to sit with their child/children will have paid for their seat.

Just pay. Nobody wants to have to swap seats they've paid for because you're a cheapskate. (Or get stuck babysitting your kid.)

We paid for extra leg room on a ryanair flight.
A family were split and i had the whole of the flight with my elbow being banged by this kid running back and forward to its parent. So bloody annoying.

I'd pay for the convenience of being able to just get on and sit down without any messing about. We recently got a flight where a dad with two young children hadn't booked seats and the staff started trying to move people so they could sit together...no one wanted to move. In the end the older child (about 5 or 6) was actually sat on her own next to another couple no where near her dad which I was surprised about as I didn't think it was allowed. She'd obviously done it before as was completely unfazed.

This! ⬆️

So bloody annoying when people with kids can't be arsed to pay to sit together but expect everyone else to just accommodate them. Why should we? So entitled. Just pay the extra 20quid!

I would choose seats otherwise you are going to end up in one of those terrible articles "I didn't move seats for a baby everyone applaud me" that are everywhere right now 😂

What's weird is how people on this thread have been brainwashed into wanting to pay more for something that used to be free

The mechanism behind seat choice was never actually free, they are always going to be costs to administering it. once upon a time there would have been administrators of some sort looking at seat plans and bookings, nowadays there will be a small cost due to the electricity and whatever else is needed behind the scenes to run the seat choice bit of the overall booking IT.

Was has changed is that once upon a time that cost, small or large, was invisible, contained within the overall price….nowadays it’s tacked on as an optional, pay for, extra.

What's weird is how people on this thread have been brainwashed into wanting to pay more for something that used to be free, and then thinking it makes them a morally better person compared to others.

I don't feel morally superior to pre booking a seat. I find it amusing that someone feels entitled enough to ask me to move from my seat because they checked in at the last minute online or at check in.

I did move seats a few months ago for a couple with a newborn as they were really polite. It was a firm no to the French woman who was travelling with a friend asking me to move to a crappy seat at the back.

If you don't purchase a seat, then you need to check in online when it opens and be prepared that you might not sit together.

It wouldn't be funny either if the planes crashes and less people are able to survive as the parents are running the wrong way, trying to locate their children, hindering other passengers leaving.
It should be free. It always used to be free. It doesn't even cost the airlines anything extra. It's as if TFL started to charge passengers more to sit next to family members on the number 1 bus to Tottenham Court Road.
What's weird is how people on this thread have been brainwashed into wanting to pay more for something that used to be free, and then thinking it makes them a morally better person compared to others.

I'd pay.
Or you could easily end up in this situation.

Other people pay to ensure they can sit next to their family / travel companions - so don't assume that, after paying for that privileged, they would move so you could do the same after choosing not to pay...

sorry, I don't find it hilarious that kids are dotted all over the plane from their parents but to each their own

Because they didn’t pay for seats and still expected to sit together, so it’s their own doing that they wanted to sit together but were unable to!
so yes it is funny!