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

Why would that person look after your child?
Most people put headphones in and focus on their own thing.
If there was assistance needed they'd just call cabin crew to come.

But this may be at the inconvenience of other passengers who will be ,over and split up, despite paying up front. And they are never compensated for this, from what I've seen.

We flew with Easyjet 3 weeks ago. Lots of empty seats so kids (primary age) were at the back playing with their devices and their dad had the row in front to himself. He was told he had to sit at with the kids as they 'weren't allowed to sit alone' even though he was immediately in front of them. So I don't think this is strictly true on easyjet. We have never been split up that way (same aisle yes but not different rows to the kids) over years of flying with easyjet although we do make sure we check in as early as possible.

And yes, I would happily pay an extra £10 for a flight if it meant this nonsense didn't go on.

Of course you would, because you're already paying extra to sit next to your child. You'd still be paying extra, but for something you feel is better.

I am less happy about paying an extra £10 for a flight, because I like the option of not paying to book my seat. I don't particularly want to pay extra because other people object to paying to sit next to their own children.

Sitting with your travelling companions is not an optional extra if any of them are too young or otherwise too vulnerable to sit alone.

And given how outrageously expensive the "optional extras" now are and the fact that these prices aren't shown alongside the air fares on sites such as Skyscanner, it is now pretty much impossible to tell what the damage is going to be until you're halfway through making your booking, because the final price bears absolutely no resemblance to what was advertised and shown against other airlines.

By the way, you subsidise children and old people all the time in one way or another.

Absolutely. And anyone who causes havoc on a plane by refusing to sit in their assigned seats should be removed and possibly banned from flying (if they cause significant disruption).

I'm sure people are quite capable of understanding and calculating base fares plus optional extras they may or may not want.

If I want to choose a particular seat (sometimes I do and sometimes I don't) I have the option of paying accordingly. All in fares including seat choices penalise solo travellers and raise prices for those who don't want optional extras.

I don't want to pay more to subsidise families and groups.

This!

If customers preferred the higher prices and not this palaver then the first airline that did it wouldn’t have found it gained market share and other airlines wouldn’t have adopted it to compete

So there may be some saying they’d prefer the old system on here but not enough to stop the sector changing markedly

People are extremely price sensitive when it comes to flights especially with price comparison site ls - airlines try to get to the top of the search results by undercutting

If I book with my family I expect allocated seats together. I might not like where they are, in which case I can pay to move, but I should have seats together. BA always did this anyway if you had kids under 12 so has never been an issue for me but I think it is stupid to deliberately allocate kids away from their parents as a money-making ploy.

And yes, I would happily pay an extra £10 for a flight if it meant this nonsense didn't go on.
I think they should make it clear that in a family booking, children under X years will be sat next to an adult from the same booking in the same row as each other, then any other requirements beyond that is up to the family (eg if families want to choose 4 or 5 seats together then that's for them to book or if they want to plan out which children are with which adult etc)

Clearly not.

Think of it as part of the cycle of life. When you're a young person/student you haven't got much cash, you travel light and can crash anywhere - you get a bargain fare because you don't need the extras. You choose to have a family - you pay for allocated seating to make your life and travel
easier. Your kids leave home and you want to travel - you're flexible and can grab a bargain again. What goes around comes around.

When it was just DH and I we didn't mind being split up so we were able to have a cheap flight

A lot of flights aren't cheap and they still charge. If you want to choose your seat before 24 hours, you have to pay to select your seat in business class on many (though not all) routes with BA.

Or they could just automatically stick an under 5 next to a paying adult if the airline 'requires' it.

I think there's a difference between charging for particular seats (you want a row near the front so you can get off quickly (or at the back on some planes)) and charging for groups on one booking to sit together.

If I book with my family I expect allocated seats together. I might not like where they are, in which case I can pay to move, but I should have seats together. BA always did this anyway if you had kids under 12 so has never been an issue for me but I think it is stupid to deliberately allocate kids away from their parents as a money-making ploy.

And yes, I would happily pay an extra £10 for a flight if it meant this nonsense didn't go on.

I remember that Ryanair (and some other budget airlines) used to be a free-for-all, with nobody having pre-allocated seats. Boarding the plane was like getting on a bus or a train - you just found a seat and sat in it.
That's how the "priority boarding" charges came about - you paid more to be among the first on the plane, giving you a wider choice of seats.
I think they moved to pre-allocated seating on order to make boarding faster.

Maybe the airlines need to stop pandering to folk then and make it very clear at time of booking that they may be close but not beside a DC if they don't pay, and anyone who expects different seats will be deplaned, as will anyone else wanting to swap seats and kicking up a fuss.

Ryanair get a bad rep but they handle this well. If you're traveling within a DC under a certain age you're obliged to pay for seats together but it's something like < £10 for the adult and DC to sit together. Stops the arguments on the airplane.

Surely they're accepting it everytime they fly?

Fully aware that no one is going to make airlines stop the charges. I was merely using utilities as another example of how readily the population accepts an explanation around extra costs etc.

Right, but a significant number of people don't accept that and probably never will, so this policy is always going to cause problems.

I always viewed it as flight prices have come down over time and budget airlines hook people in with cheap flight prices to, and then you add on what you need/want, so it's a cheaper if you don't care where you're sat.

When it was just DH and I we didn't mind being split up so we were able to have a cheap flight. Same if we were on a booking with friends. Being able to allocate passengers into the odd single seats allows for the plane to be running at capacity rather than hoping you get enough single traveller bookings to fill the rows.

Now we have DC, we want to be together so we pay for it, just like we would if we wanted to guarantee we sat next to each other or our friends in years gone by.

I don't know why people are writing as if airlines are utility companies.

The Civil Aviation Authority is not going to force airlines to stop charging for seat allocation.

Planes could take off with minimal fuss if people simply accepted that if they want guaranteed seats beside each other, they paid for them.

I paid when DS was young and simply accepted it as one of the costs of traveling with a child, and only stopped paying as soon as it genuinely didn't matter. I'd rather keep flight prices low thank you very much, than have an inbuilt cost for something I now don't need.

Well then so be it. At least the advertised price would be the true price and planes will be able to take off with minimal fuss.

@MargotBamborough

Did you read the article about Easyjet's soaring profits...

And did you read and understand my reply?

Probably not but I can see you are utterly convinced this is all about big bad airlines simply ripping off poor customers at any opportunity.

You're wrong, there's a lot more involved here but I don't feel a further exchange of ideas is going to help.

I can only hope you at very least do appreciate that if the seat choice fee is dropped then everybody onboard will pay more.