Seats on planes

[Kinsters]

I always see things about families asking others to move seats and how unreasonable they are for asking but today it happened to me!

I was flying with my parents and two young children and we'd booked separately (ie my parents on one booking and me and the kids on another) but deliberately put our seats next to each other and the airline just changed our seat locations?? It worked out well on one flight as we ended up with a spare seat for the baby but on the second was a bit of a pain. I didn't actually ask anyone to move as the flight was totally full and there was already to-ing and fro-ing in the seat next to me and the children. There's really no point to my post except to say that if someone asks whether you'd mind moving it's not necessarily down to their own poor planning! Has this happened to anyone else? I've no idea why the airline would do it but I'm sure they did as I have the conversations with my mum where she discussed what seats they'd booked and I booked mine next to them!

The reasons when passengers all get on the plane with their plane seat allocations are largely irrelevant.

You get a seat, you can ask another passenger to change, they can say yes or no. I don't understand the media interest.

I mean if people didn't post the exchange on social media then would we know?

Your mum wanted a peaceful journey so told you the wrong seats? 😅

Sometimes the airline can have to change the planes, for example if one needs maintenance, and it may have a different configuration to the first plane, so people get moved around. Or it may be that the airline has two planes a day to the destination but bookings were low that day so they amalgamated the two flights. There are all kinds of reasons

Airlines always reserve the right to change seats. Usually it's because they can't have a very young child sat apart from the adult they're travelling with, but it can also be to make sure the plane is balanced - on a less than full flight they can't have everyone sitting at the front for example, and even if it's full they still need to check that there's a roughly even distribution or adults and children.

But they didn't spilt your booking so it hasn't happened to you?

They moved your parents, a different booking to yours.

Or have I misunderstood?

I think there should be at least one adult in a group with a young child but other that or other medical issues i dont see a need for people to automically sit togetther just becaue the all know each other
Yes i am speaking generally

Sounds like in this case your question is more about 'why did the airline move the seats my parents had selected'. It's unfortunate for them and in your case the airline would have had no idea it was linked to you.

Well yes, but we'd all booked to sit on the same row and we weren't all sitting on the same row so clearly the airline moved somebody's seats.

Well yes, but we'd all booked to sit on the same row and we weren't all sitting on the same row so clearly the airline moved somebody's seats.

Right. But they didn't split up a family in the way you are suggesting by likening it to other stories and the while 'today it happened to me' - that did not happen to you. You were booked separately from your parents. That's not at all similar to them splitting up a family booking.

The issue started when you didn’t have to book your seat and people would just turn up and take whatever they could when boarding. Cue for families who were separated and wanted to ‘swap’.

Now that you check in online, it’s usually because people take too long to check in and there isn’t what they want left.

There is no reason fur example fir a child to be separated from their parents if all the checking in has done in time.

The changing the plane is unusual. I did happened to me on the ONE time I decided to pay for it and they kindly moved me in a middle seat from a pin aisle… I was a bit grumpy tbh.

The airline will shufty seats around for a number of reasons. Someone inappropriate has made an escape aisle booking, or they're juggling blocked books of seats to optimise capacity whilst respecting bookings people have made to sit together.

But as you had two different bookings this is a complete non-thing. If you want to sit together, you book together.

I know what you mean. We once had an airline move me away from my kids to sit with my parents. We had done what you did, two separate bookings but us in the row in front of them, and for reasons unknown at check in they moved me beside my parents. So in the front row was dh, dc1 and dc2 in the bassinet and then in row 2 was dm, df and me. They were adamant they couldn't change it. I assume it's because dh and dc are smiths and dp and I are walsh. Thankfully a supervisor was called and just put it back to normal. But under those circumstances if I'd been asking someone to swop they might have assumed we hadn't organised ourselves properly.

Another time we had booked comfort seats for the babies and they had amended our booking so that the three comfort seats for the three babies were randomly allocated across the plane and they moved me to a completely different row to dc1 and dh, seating him beside his dp and me in another row. Again I wondered was it a co-incidence that they kept all the smiths together and lashed me somewhere else.

@Lovingitallnow you actually think the airline moved you to sit next to a different booking because you share a surname? 😂

Maybe it was coincidence but they kept on telling me I had to sit with them. Not in the second row but "with them". But the second time I definitely think they fecked me off by myself because I don't share a surname.

They still kept everyone on each booking together though, so you were still with your children and your parents were still with each other.

You had no reason to ask anyone to move so no one else in your situation would need to ask others to move either unless they were being cheeky.

Could have been anything, most likely a change of aircraft, possibly a broken seat, maybe some passengers that had come off another cancelled flight, someone booked an exit row but wasn’t eligible, anything that required some rejigging. We had a cancelled flight recently and were rebooked but then seated close but not next to each other. The chap that had been allocated the middle seat next to me and lap infant DS was absolutely thrilled to be offered the chance to get away from the baby and sit in my DD’s aisle seat in the row in front! So it all came out ok in the end.

But they kept the seats booked together sat together, so I really don't understand the issue. Unless you paid extra for a specific seat allocation then you've got no complaint. We booked two aisle seats on a 6 hour red eye last week and paid extra to do this. A couple ended up sitting in the middle seats next to both of us, so they were separated. They wanted to swap, but I'm afraid it was a hard no. We paid to have the convenience of being on the aisle, and if they needed to sit together they could have done the same.

I did pay extra for specific seats! Both parties did.

So I specifically booked middle and window row 22 and my mum and dad booked aisle and across the aisle also row 22. But then when we checked boarding passes before getting on we noticed I was row 24 and they were row 22 or something like that. It was fine on the first flight as there were empty seats so we could move around but the second flight there weren't so I had both children (I think by that point my parents were glad of the break!!)

Have you got your actual booking with the seats on because it sounds like you booked 22 and they booked 24 for both flights tbh.

They didn't spilt the people in your booking or the people in your parents booking up though, which is what people mean when they talk about airlines splitting families.

If your parents were moved from 22C and 22D to 24C and 24D on 2 separate flights then it sounds less likely the airline had to make a change for any of the possible reasons listed above and more like your parents booked the wrong row.

It wasn't the same on each flight, that was just an example. I didn't see the point in going back and checking the bookings and writing it down exactly!

I'm very sure we booked correctly as I remember seeing the two seats my parents had booked and specifically putting mine next to theirs. I would have checked and double checked this as the whole point of them taking the flight was so that they could help me with the kids!

The whole point of them flying was to help you with the kids? Not for a holiday? Seems a bit extreme.

I'd assumed it was a holiday and they'd though stuff it, we'll sit nearby but not right next to them. My auntie did similar but didn't even sit nearby 🤣

Don’t presume middle seat couple didn’t pay to select their seats- this is exactly the point OP is trying to make, albeit not that well because she’s talking about her parents on a separate booking reference. I’m with you and I wouldn’t have swapped either, but don’t judge them for being too cheap because unless they actually said as much to you, you don’t know whether they were rebooked because their flight was cancelled, if they missed a connection due to a delay, if they had their seats changed because a change of aircraft meant their row no longer existed, or any other reason that meant their seat assignment was out of their control.

When it happened to us recently, because the flight was cancelled, not only had we paid for seats but they were in bloody business class and we were booted down to economy. We were definitely not cheapskates!

Oh weird then! Did it coincide with anything that might have caused passengers, planes or crew to be out of place and thus requiring more rejigging than usual? Bad weather, IT issue, staff strikes etc?