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

Is there something showing the price of flights over time. Imo they are incredibly cheap now compared to a decade or so ago but I can’t find anything beyond sites selling flights

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

I know they're not charities. They will try anything they can to bleed customers dry. This is one of the reasons I don't fly for leisure. Now I have kids I would rather drive to somewhere like Spain or Italy (from France, where I live) than fly there.

But customers should have said, "fuck that shit" to this particular attempt to sting them, not just obediently going along with it.

Easyjet is forecast to make £260 million profit this year.

I'm sure that looks massive as a headline figure until you consider that's about the equivalent of two or three top premiership footballers, that the airlines (all of them) have had a s* 3 years and are trying to rebuild the coffers, reequip etc before the next down turn because it is a horribly cyclical industry.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1007557/net-profit-easyjet-plc/

I was going via Easyjet for a holiday with my sister, and didn't pay, so they split us up. Fine, I thought. And then the plane wasn't full, she clocked this and came to sit next to me anyway thus ruining my happy 3 hours with a book and a nap.

Can you pay to be split up? heh.

Not sure if anyone has already said this on the thread but - I used to work for an airline a couple years ago and we HAD to sit under 12s I think next to their parent whether they booked and paid extra for the seat or not. We would actually move adults if it meant a child couldn't sit next to their parents.

Not sure if this is the case now though!

In theory yes but that is why seats are cheap. We paid for seats last year but still didn’t sit together. Although if I was asked to move for a young family I always would. X

Easyjet is forecast to make £260 million profit this year.

Of course they need to make a profit but maybe this is a profit making add on too far (makes stewards lives a nightmare, upsets customers, delays take offs etc). I'm sure they'd think of other things to charge for anyway to boost their already significant profits.

They do spin us a line that they need to charge for this in order to keep ticket prices low but that doesn't mean it's true. They have indeed also put their base fares up as well. When there is a COL crisis and rising cost of fuel etc you can pretty much spin anything Eg. Being told by energy companies that the cost of fuel means they have to treble their charges and then 6 months later announcing profits beyond their wildest dreams.

Agreed. Easyjet paved the way for seat charging and others followed suit.

It's a package, you start with the basic then build on it according to your needs. I don't want my standard fare to include seat choices and meals.

This. You either get the choice to pay or not or fares go up across all seats.

I prefer the choice

Well, flights aren't a human right either so the point is irrelevant. Writing it in in a staccato sentence doesn't change that.

The airline has made reasonable adjustments by seating small kids near their parents. That doesn't impinge human rights.

The fee should be waived for those who need specific seats because of medical conditions or disability (as I think EasyJet does).

This is exactly why the gleeful "haha I can force you to sit next to my child!" is not funny.

Once again for the people at the back...

Not. All. Flights. Are. For. Holidays.

🙄

The seat charge isn't a simplistic case of the nasty airlines adding a fee on to make more money on a flight.

Quite often the airfare (as itemised on the booking) alone won't cover the cost of carriage of the passenger and the airline only comes out with any profit due to ancillary revenue.

It's all down to economics: Airline's aren't charities, they don't have a captive market (unlike say the privatised utilities in the UK), their margins are tight and they are often competing on parallel routes with competitors so every penny on the basic fare is important from a customer sentiment POV..

I get many want seat charges banned, feel free to so campaign but also be aware that if airlines want to survive the base fare for everybody will increase by (probably) several pounds at least per sector...so I suspect many passengers will not want seat choice charges dropped.

I hate the current approach. Flight attendants put so much pressure on people to move just because they decide that for eg my teens will be just fine sat next to a total stranger. They won't, they won't wear lanyards either to make conversations on this easier for me. Juggling my children not wanting to disclose a diagnosis with saying "sorry no" to a really pushy flight attendant is tricky. I do wish they'd do positive include (put your hand up if you'd be prepared to swap and then get some perk) rather than the full on pressure because someone didn't want to pay extra to sit with aunt doris

Nobody said anything about free. Everyone has already paid their air fare.

I'm not talking about human rights, I'm talking about a policy which is purely profit driven causing indirect discrimination against certain categories of people, which is what this does.

The more people who refuse to pay it and then cause havoc when they're on the plane, the better. Maybe then the airlines will eventually concede that it's a shitty policy which isn't worth the aggro it causes.

As I told them, I wasn't a 2nd class citizen just cos I was solo travelling.

Absolutely agree. Your CF passengers were already in your seat when you arrived, but I not-infrequently fly solo too and find people more often make a beeline for me in this situation than they do when I'm with family. I'm fairly certain it's because people know women are conditioned to 'be nice'. 'It's nice to be nice' is the nauseating phrase oft-trotted out, even when that means be nice to everyone else other than ourselves. (I know now why my teachers told me never to use the word 'nice').

I've agreed when the person wanting to change was two rows behind and had an aisle seat (I need the aisle seat). But they try all sorts, including non-reclining seats directly in front of the loo on one occasion.

My default answer nowadays is a resolute 'no'. I'm not a parcel to be shunted around for others' convenience.

And I am a 'nice' parent. I am far too concerned with my own child's wellbeing to ever risk a two-year-old sitting next to a complete stranger, who could, let's face it, be anyone. That's the very least of what parents owe to their children.

Assuming that whoever they're sitting with is a Nice Person is not adequate safeguarding and a dereliction of duty as a parent.

Having children is not a human right. Nor is going on holiday @MargotBamborough

It’s not funny for the passenger having to deal with someone’s snot nosed brat.

Hell is other people’s children, as they say.

Pay for your seats, no one is owed a free lunch.

Again, the airlines have caused this problem by forcing people to pay to choose their seats,

Objectively it's not fair to keep trying to pin some form of blame for this on the airlines, and the airlines only.

Those with long memories will recall that for a while in UK/Europe there was a considerable overlap of how seating was done, with some airlines not charging for seat choice (or not giving one)..and others charging (or having free seating) but having a lower basic ticket price.

Experience ( and the marketers/analysts at airlines would bore to death on this) showed people's choice of who to fly with was very much driven by cost....frankly lots of people don't care about seat choice, meals etc, but did want a cheap ticket.

If 25-30 years back more members of the general public had been prepared to pay for full service/all inclusive at the initial sticker price then maybe that choice may still be more widespread....but they wouldn't, so it isn't.

Because it’s funny. And obviously they don’t have to look after someone else’s child. They don’t have to interact with the child. But if they don’t move they will have to sit next to said child without a parent looking after them. It’s not an issue as the airline can’t seat a toddler away from the parent.

Again, the airlines have caused this problem by forcing people to pay to choose their seats, and in some cases, deliberately separating people from their travelling companions if they don't.

For all of you saying, "It's only £20!", it's not. It's per person, which is a lot if you are travelling as a family.

This is indirect discrimination against families with children, old or otherwise vulnerable passengers, and people with disabilities and medical conditions.