Paying for seat choices on planes

[EmpressSoleil]

DS is in Japan at the moment and flew into Haneda so I was watching the news about the plane crash.

An aviation safety expert was commenting and he said (very strongly) that the practice of paying to choose your seat needs to stop as when people don't pay they are often separated. Then in a crash scenario, they will be looking for their partner or child etc and it could delay evacuation with fatal results. Which all makes sense.

So I wondered how many people don't pay and what they think they would do in that situation? I have adult DC I sometimes travel with and we've sometimes sat a few rows apart. On a short flight especially we dont see the point in paying the extra.

It's made me think that I probably would now have a conversation before our next flight and say that in a worst case scenario they need to just evacuate and not look for me, and vice versa. Although in practice it's probably very hard to go against your instincts.

That is a completely different situation. The OP is talking about a scenario where everyone on a plane rather than already being with their loved ones is being told to evacuate but because we're human and will go into survival mode in an emergency, your brain is going to focus on "get to loved one" not "GTFO" which is not a huge issue if one person is doing it but if it's a plane full of people all panicking and going in different directions, you'll get someone tripping over and then there is a very real chance of a crowd crush.

In a car you're in a little self contained section not a crowd. Even in a situation like a mass pile up you wouldn't be going through other people to get to your child.

I just pay to sit together. It cost less than £30 for 4 of us on the last flight I booked. Anyone who is desperate to save a few quid doesn't need to pay. It's definitely just part of the silly pricing. I'd rather they didn't bother and charge more but then they can't charge extra for upfront and legroom.

I don't pay, but not traveling with little ones, in an emergency situation you evacuate, thankfully these are very very rare

I think it is fine not to pay but not fine for the airline to deliberately seperate you (looking at you Ryanair) when they could sit you pretty close as there are seats - as Easyjet do.

Are accidents/crashes the only reason why an plane would need to be evacuated urgently?

A risk being unlikely doesn't mean it should be exempt from mitigation. Especially when the only reason for it is company profit.

I think it's the opposite, if I don't sit next to my loved ones, I would be tempted to try to find them before evacuating (if they are not too far off). I think others would do the same.

If you're sitting together, you would evacuate quicker.

I prefer to pay for seats, specially on long/overseas flights. It's boring to just sit between strangers.

The bigger hindrance is people trying to take luggage with them, thankfully in the JAL situation no one was silly enough to drag a wheelie case onto the chute. Stuff can be replaced

Interesting that you say that. The same expert was also saying he always keeps his shoes on, has his car keys and phone in his pocket for take off and landing.

It was many years ago that I read that that planes generally do not just fall out of the sky and that it is take off and landing that are the "risky" part. Which was the case in this accident.

I definitely agree that potentially a bigger issue on a lot of flights would be people trying to grab their bags.

I don't think it hurts to consider these things. House fires are thankfully pretty rare nowadays but it's still sensible to have an evacuation plan. In fact the fire service advise it.

I have never paid it - even when the kids were little. We have always been sat together. I used to joke that it would be nice if someone else had to sit with the kids for a few hours and I got some peace for a nap, but it never happened. They’re older teens now and we still get seated together though I doubt any of us would mind getting split up for the duration of a flight. A seat is a seat and I don’t care where they put me. As long as I have my Kindle and a bottle of water I’m happy.

Most of the large airlines have a policy that requires children under a certain age to be sat next to a parent for this very reason.

I personally don't bring large amounts of hand luggage onto planes and always have a handbag at my feet that I can wear cross body, my theory is I can sling it across me to evacuate

Yes, I do wonder what the evacuation might have been like had it been predominantly people from a country other than Japan, whose people are well known for having great respect for, and adherence to, rules that are in place to protect others as well as oneself.

My children are over that age threshold. I still wouldn't abandon them in an emergency.

We choose to pay, so we can sit together. The flight is part of our holiday. When choosing where to sit, I avoid the back as for some reason I get sickness and nausea.

So to be safe it is probably best to make sure you are sitting next to people who have read the evacuation leaflet, have checked where the nearest exit is, are relatively agile and obey instructions about not taking personal items with you!

Apparently the PA failed on the Japanese plane, so the staff had to shout instructions, in addition the slides didn’t deploy properly. It is amazing that everyone got out - and that none of them tried to take personal belongings .

@BlusteryLake that's understandable. Those policies aren't perfect. I they seem like a minimum safety measure that sits alongside exploitative seat charging practices.

I watched a great show years ago which was all about how best to survive various emergencies and lots of the info stayed with me. Things like having an evacuation plan from hotels, leaving keys near the front door etc. We live in Aus and we also have a bushfire plan too which we’ve luckily never had to use and have updated as the kids have got older.
The main thing was to have an actual plan as panic was the worst thing.

In all disasters, not specifically aircraft ones, lives are lost when people look for friends and family members instead of evacuating.

Evacuation from aircraft is slowed down badly when people try to get their bags from overhead lockers instead of leaving immediately, and they block up the aisle. That's one of the worst problems.

Family members looking for each other slows the family down, it doesn't get them out faster and there's no advantage to going out the door together. Better info for passengers is key IMO, but that means people listening to instructions which a great many people don't. Telling your own kids to just do what the cabin crew tell them, instead of looking for their parents, is a good idea.

We’re only human though - I don’t think, in an emergency, most people can rationally think “I don’t need to look for my children because it’s more likely we’ll all get out if I don’t”, because we love them and it’s a natural reaction to look after your loved ones.

It's a great point OP. And for all those saying 'crashes are extremely rare' well yes they are but it doesn't stop airlines ensuring preparedness for the possibility. For example seat backs upright, tray stowed, bags stowed on takeoff and landing so in the event of evacuation there is suitable space.
An errant reclined seat is unlikely to impact evacuation as much as a parent trying to find a child several rows back and barging down the aisle in the opposite direction to the exit

Part of the problem here is that people consider "together" to be directly next to each. But passengers don't fit nearly into seat rows. Then there's the middle seats... most people flying alone don't want them... or the preference to be near the front, or extra leg room...

So people put different values on seats. If they just filled the plane front to back, families could be separated, unless they leave gaps. Or the last few groups are separated...

Even before seat booking was a thing... parties were separated.

If you watch any of the airport crash landings on YouTube, you'll see how slow it is to evacuate, mostly apparently because of people faffing around getting their luggage. I can't imagine that a few people trying to find each other will make that much difference if half the plane are barging into each other to get to the overhead compartments!

There was one I think in Russia where a huge proportion of passengers didn't make it out of a plane fire but there seemed plenty of time for them to have done so - a dribble of people coming down the shutes with their suitcases rather than the "ideal" of a constant stream of passengers. It was said that it was down to people getting their baggage blocking the aisle!

I always listen to the safety instructions and check where the exits are. Many years ago I did the helicopter ditching training and where listening to the emergency instructions was drilled into us (one hand on escape route, one hand on buckle release).

@Ozgirl75 I'm a health & safety professional and having studied causes and outcomes of many fatal accidents, I wholeheartedly agree about planning.

I tell people travelling for work to mentally note the fire escape routes in hotels. We all know the potential consequences of a fire in a densely occupied large building. It takes just seconds to look back when you let yourself into your room, and think "if there's a fire my nearest escape route is to turn left out of my room, down to the end of the corridor and down the stairs to the ground floor" etc. In a fire when there could be smoke in corridors so you can't see, you don't want to waste time trying to read things.

I doubt the PA failed although maybe passengers thought that.

For various reasons airline crew shout the evacuate instructions. If they know before lamding that an evacuation is imminent the pre-landing prep is done via the PA but once on the ground instructions are yelled. Loudly. By all the crew simultaneously.