I effed up our holiday

[poppysgalore]

Flying out tomorrow on easyJet - family of five - first time on easyJet- had no idea we had to book our seats in advance. Just logged in and seen there's only random single seats left. Except for two rows that are near the fire exits so can't be allocated to under 16s. I'm gutted ! What do we do now , my youngest is 7 and the flight is 6 hours long. How could I be so stupid and not know this.

They will not force changes, how can they?

@ClytemnestraWasMisunderstood Of course they can. They can reshuffle and reissue boarding passes at the gate, for one. They can refuse to depart until volunteers are found for another.

So the whole plane has to suffer because of 1 person's mistake

Unlikely the whole plane. Unlikely anyone on the plane has never made any kind of mistake either.

But it's not just passengers not pre-selecting seats that can create last minute changes. Last minute change of aircraft, passengers turning up at the airport and requesting wheelchair assistance they hadn't pre-booked (they then have to be in a window seat). Damage caused to a seat or seats on an earlier sector. Load balance if it's a quiet flight.

This is bollocks sorry. EasyJet asks you about seat allocation/ bags/ speedy boarding multiple times in the booking process as they make their money from these extras. In addition sad face daily mail articles about toddlers practically in the hold because mum didn’t pre book seats have been going on for decades. And then the email address doesn’t accept new emails that the op booked her apparently once in a lifetime trip so she hasn’t got any reminders about the flight, the extras and the boarding.

Absolutely ridiculous and if all this is accurate op you’ve only yourself to blame. You’ll be very fortunate if people are willing to move for you on your flights and maybe this is a wake up call for you to get yourself organised with a working email address and time to focus on complex activities like flight booking.

Think about the laughs in the future: "do you remember our first flight? Mum forgot to check and we ended up having an adventure with the seats!".
This is the stuff that makes for good family stories, OP 😊
Have a great flight and holiday! 🍀💐

This! A 6-hour EasyJet flight will be endurance, not pleasure. Just look forward to what’s waiting for you at the end! 😀

Except that the OP seems so utterly clueless that people giving her example scenarios might help her to prepare her DC for sitting in scattered seats throughout the plane. And help to explain to her (in simple terms she can understand) why it may be difficult for the cabin crew to rearrange a section of the plane for her convenience.

It is REALLY hard to ignore the exhortations to book seats, luggage, priority boarding etc on any of the cheap airlines. But once you do that, you really expect that you are able to enjoy just sitting in your seat and not being bothered by people who don't read the website!

@poppysgalore i am genuinely curious who you normally fly with where purchasing seat bookings isn’t required as it’s fairly standard with TUI, BA etc?

Have a good holiday. Hopefully the holiday part is the memorable bit not the flights.

@MuggleMe

Chances are people will be happy to move,

• Do people do this even though they chose their seats in advance?

Charming.

If you want a truly horrible flight experience, try Tui.

I actually used to choose easyjet for my business flights because the seats don't recline. One less shit thing to worry about.

Making lovely memories though? I really do struggle to think of anything lovely to remember and I used to fly Easyjet 2-4 times a week. I think all the budget airlines have sucked any joy there ever was from travel.

Mine are 12 and 14 and I wouldn't want to be sat away from them nor them me.

By giving you a new boarding card 😂😂🤷🏻‍♀️

Its what happened to me.

It's massively insulting to the poor people who happen to be sitting in those seats. All they've done is check in for their flight and take their seats, and they have to deal with you loudly proclaiming that you think they might molest your child.

It's a really nasty thing to say and it makes you look unhinged.

I agree with a PP that you'll end up with an anxious child who sees danger everywhere.

Thanks to everyone else with all the lovely messages and helpful advice , I'm still glad I posted regardless of the unnecessarily rude people on here as I genuinely had no clue how easyJet works and there has been some very helpful advice . Yes we generally have used emirates /qatar/etihad BA so this has come as abit of a shock to me. Definitely learnt for next time although I suspect this will be the first and last time we fly easyJet !

It's also the first time I have personally booked tickets for a holiday - dh usually handles the booking side of things. I am fucking frazzled doing it all this time including all shopping and packing and will definitely let him carry on handling it in the future as we've always had the smoothest journey ever.

Did you manage to gets seat somewhere near each other?

Have a lovely holiday!

Exactly!

I know there are CF's who don't pay for allocated seats and just expect people to move, but single flyers aren't going to be bothered about moving, unless they are going to be sat next to someone unpleasant.

Checkin for the return flight now.

It's massively insulting to the poor people who happen to be sitting in those seats. All they've done is check in for their flight and take their seats, and they have to deal with you loudly proclaiming that you think they might molest your child.

Indeed. And people wonder why other passengers find some families on a flight difficult!

Is a poster seriously suggesting that you regard the poor benighted person sitting next to your DC a potential threat?? All because the parent was too mean to pay for a seat selection?

Totally Ryanair. Last time we flew with them my late DH was a couple of rows behind me. He got a window seat and I got the aisle. Annoying. Hate Ryanair.

Look there are 5 of you, sitting next to 5 different people. Chances are quite high that one of them will be a solo traveller. Be nice, ask politely if they’d mind swapping and offer them the best seat you have amongst your group- ideally an aisle or window and as far forward as possible, or if one of your seats is extra legroom then even better, and maybe a drink from the trolley too. Then voila you have a pair together for you and the 7YO and the other 3 can distribute yourselves amongst the remaining seats.

I’ve been there except it was a 5YO and a 10 hour night flight, and definitely not my fault because we had lovely preselected seats in business class but then alas a BA IT failure and we found ourselves in American Airline’s economy. Lap infant DS and I had the window. DD had an aisle 2 rows up. The bloke that was allocated the middle next to me was absolutely thrilled to get an aisle away from the baby haha. So it worked out!

Whatever happens it’s a means to an end, you’ll all be fine and the holiday will be worth it.

I would be! I pick an aisle seat if travelling alone, not too far forward or back. So I'd be happy swapping for a similar aisle seat but not otherwise.