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

They will seat the toddler next to one of the adults automatically.

If you check in at the first available opportunity (30 days ahead I think) it won't be a problem, you'll all get seats together, that's what I usually do

There is little choice on many of the routes these days and I regret seeing that choice removed. But it's by no means only the budget airlines. They introduced the model and the industry adopted it.

When EasyJet first started they didn't allocate seats at all. You just got on and the plane filled up. It was great - 200 seats - 200 passengers, first on went to the back of the plane, didn't hold others up whilst stowing luggage. They brought in seat allocation in 2012.

I think you're right that even the "proper airlines" try to make you do it. I booked flights on KLM and Austrian Airlines recently and I think they did. I don't pay to book seats- as long as I'm on the plane I don't care where I sit.

The standard airlines have now adopted menu-pricing, whilst still charging the more expensive base-line seating costs. Some have a more generous model: a nominal cost for increased baggage/check-in luggage plus choice of seating.

But one basic ticket-price with all that included is now a rarity, if it still exists at all. Some people prefer menu-pricing, the ability to pay their money and buy only what they want. Being a lazy besom who wants it all done for me and CBA with the ins and outs, I find this a headache.

There is little choice on many of the routes these days and I regret seeing that choice removed. But it's by no means only the budget airlines. They introduced the model and the industry adopted it.

Is this fact or is it what we are made to believe in order for the airlines to justify charging for extras? Did anyone see a significant drop in basic costs of flights once they started to introduce these extras? See my previous post with the link showing easyjet bumper profits.

Christ this thread is like banging your head against a wall, no wonder the OP has legged it.

To clarify some of the most frequent misunderstandings;

• easyJet as a rule allocate bookings together IF they can. They can't always. You can't get a family of 4 into a row of 3 seats.

• easyJet offer check-in and your seat numbers one whole MONTH before travel, so plenty of time to contact them and change your seats before you're actually onboard the plane, in the unlikely event they're not together.

• Seats being greyed out at time of booking doesn't mean they've all been booked already. It may mean the airline are managing the weight allocation until such time they're sold a high enough percentage of seats to not have to.

• outside of MN, there are many many many people who couldn't give a flying one where they're sat on a plane, nor if they're asked politely to switch.

Absolutely this.

And if you choose not to pay, sort your seating issues out directly with the airline rather than leaving it to chance that some other passenger will move for you - in effect, paying for your seat choices whilst relinquishing their own.

I am one passenger who will not be moving.

The only person lawfully being thrown off a plane should be the person refusing to use the seat they chose.

A person who doesn’t want to give up their paid for seat shouldn’t ever be thrown off a plane.

Can you imagine if you were in a restaurant and someone said they hadn’t bothered to buy their kid a meal but he was hungry so they’d be having yours please, and the restaurant not only allowed that but demanded you pay for it and then threw you out?

Nobody would say that was OK, but many seem to think that they can disagree with the rules and force someone else to give them what they want, and if that person don’t like it, they should be removed from the plane.

Bonkers level of entitlement.

@pleasehelpwi3

No, it's the airline being unfair. It's a made up charge that never used to exist.

Sort of. Once upon a time any costs associated with passenger wishes for seating were imbedded in the price ( if there was any choice at all..those were the days).

The market deregulated and charges for seat choice, amongst other things, all had to be "made up" as you put it, in order to allow the basic price of the ticket as seen on TV/website to be kept low.

Get rid of that "made up" charge (e.g. by legislation) and the basic price of most tickets will go up.

No, it's the airline being unfair. It's a made up charge that never used to exist.
If anything, it's unfair on anxious people as I've never paid, and always been placed next to my child- most recently last week.
I've been on three flights this month-two we didn't pay to be together- and were together. (Easyjet.)
On the last one (BA) we had to make separate bookings when we were buying the tickets, so were given different seats. As it was a short flight and my son was with my partner, I didn't say anything, but my neighbour jumped up and offered to change anyway.

BA don't always, I'm not sure about Virgin, but in any case that's an example of the fact that over the last 25-30 years many legacy airlines have had to alter their business model to get/keep their headline fares anything close to that offered by some of the LoCos who introduced, for want of a better expression, menu pricing.

There's very little "full service" to be found anywhere these days.

I've always found that we're sat together anyway on BA and Virgin.
Ryanair deliberately split groups up I think. Not sure about easyJet (but you can choose seats at check-in).
I thought TUI was a cheap airline, for cheap package holidays.

Next online article: A thoughtless tight mother does not book a seat for her children and expects everyone to move to accomodate her.

But BA Virgin and Tui also charge to sit people together it isn't just the Cheap airlines.

The inconvenient truth is that passengers don't fit neatly into seating configurations. Not everyone can sit directly next to their companions. This was true before seat booking when the airline allocated seats on check in. Its true now.
Added to that, passengers don't see seats as equal. Most people don't want to be squashed in between two strangers just in front of the toilet.
Hence why prebooking works. People pay for comfort.

If non-budget airlines started doing the same as budget they'd lose their customers. Who would pay more for crap service?
Also I don't see why travelling light and seating elsewhere is a fake price. Plenty of people are happy to travel light. Just because YOU don't want to , doesn't make it fake.

And at the end of the day it doesn't even benefit anyone! As PP said airlines aren't going to happily lose the money, they will claw it back elsewhere. The ticket prices might rise, it might not necessarily be cheaper than people just paying for the extras, if less people fly as a result of tickets being more expensive.

It's people's mindsets. They don't think that, had seating etc be included they'd be paying more for their ticket anyway. They see a cheap ticket and baulk at having to pay extra.

However you wrap your head around it numbers are numbers and you'll end up paying one way or another.

Ryanair aside I think they do make the effort.

but the plane configuration of 3/3 for most short haul flights means that if the vast majority of people book (and this does happen in the holidays) you can just be left with odd seats. Then there isn’t much you can do

Very much agree with that.

Genuine "full service" is harder and harder to find because when push comes to shove when booking most people simply look at the headline price...

Exactly. Should. Ideally. Make every effort.

uhm
https://www.caa.co.uk/passengers/before-you-fly/making-a-booking/airline-seating-allocations/#:~:text=Families%2C%20children%20and%20infants&text=Young%20children%20and%20infants%20who,seat%20row%20from%20accompanying%20adults.

I really wish people would stop saying they are required by law to seat you next to your children. They're not. It's guidance.

It's the new "you can't give a bad reference".

Agree on the disability point. I have a leg issue and have to sit on the aisle on the left side of the plane, so I can keep my leg straighter. If it's really bad, I've been known to stand by the toilets. The amount of times people think you can just swap to an opposite aisle because it's the same is ridiculous.

I am flying with easyjet, I did not pay extra for them to sit my family together.
They did anyhow for free (damn them!).
They are required by law to sit you next to your children (under 12).
Just check in early online and it will be fine.
Most people are kind, it is not the end of the world of you sit across the aisle from your child.

The fact that the budget airlines got away with this nonsense is the reason why many non budget airlines are now doing the same thing.

Like I said above, these airlines should be forced to advertise the true price, not the fake price (that you can only get by being seated away from your travelling companions and only bringing the clothes you are standing up in).

It's also clearly indirect discrimination on grounds of age, disability and probably sex, given that anyone who is travelling with children or other vulnerable people needs to not be separated from them.

Well yeah, when I travel solo/with friends I don't want to pay extra to make up for people with kids.
And let's face it, the majority of people are going on holiday. PP are moaning about 'well not all flights are about holidays' I know, I'm an immigrant and fly home annually but that's a choice I made.

Also I don't know whether many people realise just HOW cheap flights can be. Cheaper than even train tickets.

Again, if it bothers them that much, don't fly budget, fly full service. Job done.

It's a budget airline. I think your delightful nun saying applies to the people using it but who won't pay to sit together.
Go for a full service airline if it bothers you that much.
You get what you pay for!