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

The people who haven't booked and don't like their allocated seats should be told to sit down in the seats they've been given or get off the plane.

Easyjet generally sits you together if you check in as soon as it's the 30 days before departure.

Do what you want OP, as long as I'm allowed to do the same which means not expecting me to move for you.

Nevertheless the crew have to be careful about overstepping the bounds of their powers.

TBH in many ways I agree with many pp that for the sake of peace, quiet and harmony on boarding it would be best to go back to the old fashioned way and just scrap the seat choice charge but given margins (tight) lets not kid ourselves - the airlines will claw the ancillary revenue lost through other avenues...and that quite rightly won't be popular with many travellers.

It feels like everyone pays these days. A few years ago, we didn't pay and assumed we would sit together. We didn't and loads if other families were in the same boat. It was
Chaos

You may get lucky and a family misses their
Flight and leaves a row free but you can't rely on that

If the flight is full and loads of families travelling, it's only going to leave random seats free dotted throughout

The only way I wouldn't bother to select the seat these days is if i was travelling alone

I didn't mean check in late, as in after the check in had closed.
I meant being one of the last passengers to check in.

But yes, even if you've paid and checked in some airlines overbook anyway and you can't fly regardless. Compensation is normally given at least

Pay the money.

It's unfair on other passengers

If you check in late and you aren’t even guaranteed a seat - even if you were willing to pay for it!

But if the order is asking a customer who has paid to sit with their family to move, it is perfectly lawful. And if you read the small print it's clear that paying to choose your seat doesn't guarantee that you will actually get that, and if you don't, you won't be refunded the extra charge. Which is all the more reason not to pay it. Imagine if you and your partner travel with your four small children and you've paid an extra £20 per person to choose your seats. That's an extra £120. And then they split you up anyway. There's nothing you can do about it.

The operative and important word is lawful, crew don't have carte blanche to start simply issuing any old order that must be obeyed.

Why would they chuck some random person off and not the family in question?

@StrawberryWaterIce it should be free of course, and I am sure legislation could require this.

@Teateaandmoretea actually excluding a small number that may have been greyed out for special assistance passengers and an even tinier number that may be held back for airport check in it does. Even if that is the case we're still talking 80% of the plane had booked their seats.
I had another look last night after check in had opened and there were 5 seats that were showing as still available to book. None anywhere near each other. Out of a plane with 220 seats. 16 hours after online check in opened. Yes airport check in may be able to do something but I wouldn't fancy my chances on a flight that is going to be full of school children.

Most airlines charge. I've flown with BA, Virgin, Etihad, Emirates, Qatar, etc and all charge. It's not just EasyJet and RyanAir who charge!

It always starts with the cheapest, nastiest, most budget airlines.

So Michael O'Leary decides to start charging people to start choosing their seats and if they don't pay deliberately splitting up groups for literally no reason other than to force them to pay. But because the idiot customers just paid up and kept flying Ryanair instead of saying, "Actually, once you add on all these extra charges it's not really any cheaper than flying with a proper airline" and taking their custom elsewhere, Ryanair got away with it so Easyjet started doing it, and now you don't even really have the ability to avoid it by flying with a proper airline because the proper airlines are doing it too.

Same with baggage. Once it became clear that most people flying with budget airlines weren't prepared to pay extortionate fees to check a bag until the hold, they started charging for cabin baggage which most people can't do without.

Charging to use the toilet (which Michael O'Leary has suggested) and banning passengers from bringing their own food and drink onto the plane are just about the only places left to go now pretty much everything else is classed as an optional extra.

To be honest, I can't be arsed with these unscrupulous airlines ripping passengers off and will probably avoid flying altogether until my kids are old enough to sit alone.

Where possible.
If you check in late then they can't guarantee this.
And next to can mean across an aisle, or the row in front or behind you.

§it's been the norm for many years now - Imdont think seas have been included in most airlines fees for a long time, and certainly not budget airlines - and yet none have yet introduced paying for the toilet, so I suspect it's unlikely.

I wouldn't pay personally and I would also move for you. My youngest is 12.

If you don't follow the lawful instruction of a crew member you can get chucked off.

I've always paid as it's important to me that we are all sat together in seats adjacent to one another. Not paying and leaving it til the end would mean I was more stressed. So I pay to remove the stress and anxious feeling in the run up,to,check in.

If they sit your 2y next to you but it is the row in front, the row behind or across the aisle - how will you react? Will you accept those seats as being yours, without fuss?

If the answer is yes, then go ahead and don't pay to book.

What?! I know a lot of people choose to do the car seat thing in the US but it’s still not a ‘need’. Besides, to my knowledge there aren’t even any UK toddler car seats currently for sale that are airline approved. I do it occasionally, mostly because we want the car seat on arrival but also it’s nice that DC can sleep with the headrest rather than on me but I take our old seat from the US (and conveniently ignore the fact it’s actually illegal to use it in a car in Europe).

For the flight? I’ve never taken a car seat for a dc at any age

In that case airlines should be forced to advertise the true price and offer a discount at the booking stage, not pretend your flight is £31 per person only for you to find the price has quadrupled by the time you've selected the options to not be separated from your toddler and be allowed to bring a toothbrush.

This

The OP will not require a car seat for the 2 year old, unless she's hiring a car at her destination.