Only 3 of our party allocated a seat Tui flight!

[Totallybannanas]

Should I be worried or is this normal? We haven't pre booked seats or anything but our youngest 16 hasn't been allocated a seat, whereas we (adults) have all been seated together.

Regulation on air advertising, however, could enforce the airlines to create and market their standard offer to be the price including an automatic seat selection. Then there could be a no frills option, with your seat at the back / not next to your party.

They don't make us pay extra for fuel or toilet paper - it's a choice what to include in the package.

The main thing regulation should also be doing is incentivising us to go by train and boat, as well!

Regulation on air advertising, however, could enforce the airlines to create and market their standard offer to be the price including an automatic seat selection. Then there could be a no frills option, with your seat at the back / not next to your party.

To some extent that sort choice exists in some ways already with at least some operators - hence the existence of business class verses economy plus and economy.

@Totallybannanas

Please clarify:

Has your 16 been allocated a seat that’s not near to your group or,

Have they been bumped off the plane with no seat at all?

(the first option is obviously fine)

I doubt OP is worried about a 16 yo sitting alone. It sounds like she’s worried about him having a seat on the plane at all.

And yet Ryanair recorded £303m worth of profit in the spring quarter. I'd say there was plenty of money in it.

Is there a need to clarify? It's completely obvious which scenario has happened as it was explicitly clearly in the first place.

Not 100% sure what you’re asking here.

If 3/4 of your party have a seat, but the 4th doesn’t then get in touch with the airline. Something has gone wrong. Maybe you only checked in 3 people?

If the 16 year old has been allocated a seat away for you then they will be fine. Probably will spend the duration on their phone so won’t speak anyway

That's not how it worked in the Old Days. You only got to sit together if you turned up early at the airport to check in. Being seated together has never been a guaranteed thing that comes with the price of the seat.

Being able to guarantee this and choose a specific seat is an extra and it's quite right that it should be charged for.

@Amoregelato Ryanair carry millions of passengers a year, of course it stacks up. My point was confirming that the 'extras' such as seat selection are not pure profit for the airlines as some assume.

Yet another thread where the reading comprehension skills of the some posters are about the same level as a 5 year old.

Has he got no seat or just not a seat with you? I'm sure a 16 yo will be able to cope.

Agreed it’s ridiculous.

Ah, the old umpteen million profit figure with no context that gets headlines in the MSM…

TBF you are right, there’s actually is plenty of money flying around, but the problem is a lot of it flies out of the airline to pay to run the operation and that is typically into the billions, with a “b”, of £/€/$

Reason it’s in the billions is that you get into figures such 10/20/30 thousand dollars an hour simply to fly a modern airliner (type involved and leasing deal means there is variability), airports often charge hundreds of pounds per landing/takeoff, once you’ve stopped flying many airports charge hundreds of pounds an hour for parking…there’s a whole stack of other typical costs that I won’t list here but are hefty but are are invisible to the paying public

The following is not a great metric but worth considering if you want a bit of perspective - take an airline balance sheet, take the profit earned in a season after tax and divide by passengers carried over the same season. In recent years you have typically been seeing the sort of profit per pax @FoleyHuck came up with.. maybe £5 -£10.

TBF Last year was better for many operators but that maybe allows them to refill the coffers that were depleted during the epidemic when aircraft were grounded but leases still needed to be covered and also think about renewing fleets..

Fundamentally if seat choice charges were binned the airlines would either go under or would have to claw revenue lost through other avenues (meal charges, checked bag charges) or raise the basic fare….

Not everyone can have the seat they wish. Clearly, so those who don’t care basically pay 30 quid less than those who do.

They charge for seat selection as people do put value on different seats. Aisle, window, together, front, back, left, right, near an exit... Plus passengers don't come in meat groups that all fit together nicely.

Which is a completely different question anyway, since OP was concerned the teenager had no seat whatsoever rather than just a bit apart... which would concern anyone want to travel together really!

I can only travel on a plane reasonably anxiety free if I'm at the front so always book.
I wish it didn't bother me but it does so worth paying for imo.

And that was even more stressful, wasn't it , wondering how early to arrive to queue to get seats together, how many had checked in ahead, relying on a ‘nice’ check in person to work with you. There was even a ‘smoking or none smoking option’.

I hated flying as a teen, so would be quite panicked about where we would sit.

And yet Ryanair recorded £303m worth of profit in the spring quarter. I'd say there was plenty of money in it.

From 55.5million passengers. So a profit of £5.46 per passenger.

What is "profit" then?

Roughly speaking in this context Total revenue earned minus all outgoings.

Seeing as £303 million has been mentioned for Ryanair, to get some perspective have a look at the brochure price for something like a new 737, and work out how many aircraft that would buy.

It’s a very big numbers industry.

Is there 4 of you and your 16 year old hasn't been allocated a seat? If that's the case the 16 year old takes an adult seat and the adult sits wherever.

At 16 they are an adult for air flight purposes so can be allocated wherever, but they should have a seat allocation somewhere if you have checked them in. TUI do not overbook so the only times where they have issues is late change of aircraft to lower capacity (these things happen, safety first)

@FoleyHuck

So true, airlines and holiday operators generally work on razor thin margins, the profits are due to the huge number of customers per year. In fact since deregulation this has been getting smaller and smaller.

I don't mind the fact that everything is uncoupled with budget airlines, means I can put together the services I need eg taking one checked large suitcase (23kg) but no extra bags in cabin (just the free personal item) is our default for easyJet. For BA that allowed the 56cm bags for free with ditched the checked luggage and so on. We do appreciate TUI's included luggage for longer trips!

@mitogoshi

airlines and holiday operators generally work on razor thin margins, the profits are due to the huge number of customers per year. In fact since deregulation this has been getting smaller and smaller.

Very true.

I was at one of the legacies (so ticket covered everything) when deregulation happened in Europe and a lot of the traveling public were off like a shot to our LoCo competitors once they discovered the joys of being able to unbundle a fare.

Lots of people claim they would rather have all in fares but experience shows that come to the crunch many will go to for the lower base fare.