To expect to be allocated airline seats next to my kids?

[correllia]

My partner and I are off on holiday to menorca at the end of September with Monarch. They have emailed us to tell us we can check in online now, which saves time at the airport.

So far so good - but to complete the process I have to prebook my seats at the cost of £5 per seat per flight. We are on a tight budget and deliberately haven't bought the seats in advance to save the pennies.

Kiddies are 2 and 4, whilst I don't mind our sitting 2 and 2 apart from each other but looking at the seat plan even this option is fast disappearing! Can the airline force such young children to sit next to strangers?

Am I unreasonable to demand that we sit with them?

PS this is my first post, so please be genttle :-)

Errmm why do companies do this now, heard a few people being told to check in online and have to book their seats. Why cant the company just allocate seats when you pay for the flight, which is what used to happen.

So what if everyone is in a family group?

How can that be worked around?

You get what you pay for with bidget airlines. That's why they're so ludicrously cheap.

I refuse to pay to sit as a group purely because its new additional cost brought in in the last few years by greedy tour operators and airlines
and secondly because (yuou only have to read this thread to understand) its ripping off the families with children. Families are forced into paying due to being stressed or worried about being seperated.

At the end of the day can a 4 yo do up their own seatbelt? If a young child is seperated from its parents where does the responsibility lie with said child undoing seatbelt and (albeit fairly unlikely) getting injured upon take off/landing or during turbulence. When it comes to inflight meals (if opted for) who will help remove the foil off the top, open the drink, help child avoid spilling food/drink over fellow passengers? What if they choke whilst eating? The list could go on!

My DC are now old enough to sit on their own so although I like to be sat by them I dont loose sleep over not being able to, but if they were younger I would be well miffed at having to pay just to ensure everything in the above paragraph is taken care of.

The CAA actually encourages airline to ensure families are kept together. As their website states, in case of emergency loads of parents would be searching for their kids and preventing a smooth and fast evacuation. I mean what person would leave a stricken aircraft without their child? I am sure there was a law about children under a certain age to be sat close to their parents I cannot recall if that was age 6 or 9, but I cannot see it now, so perhaps it is no longer current.

donthateme - I don't think the practice of charging people to sit together on flights is confined to budget airlines - our family have to fork out an additional £40/person to ensure we can sit together as a family or leave it up to chance or the kindness of strangers ...

Donthateme I think your remarks about being able to afford the booking fees are not necessary.

It is not down to us to know the OPs financial situation but as they have not been abroad as a family before they could be doing this on a very tight budget.

For those airlines with non allocated seats they should allow families with young children to board with priority customers regardless of if they have paid or not. Why should someone's right to sit with their young children be based on their ability to elbow their way to the front of the queue.

MonaLisa - they do it because people will pay and they just want to make more £££££. Like you said, it used to be they allocated seats upon booking!

Equally, why should someone's choice of seat be based on their ability to produce offspring?

That said, when flying on my own for work, I have offered to swap my seat on several occasions without being asked if I see a parent separated from their child. Why wouldnt anyone do that? I dont get this "children are part of an alien race" attitude that some flyers have. Its public transport fgs - if people really cant fly with children they should charter a private jet.

And its not always possible to ensure you sit with your children - we have turned up very early at check-in and still been split. I have been allocated seats when I bought the tickets and still been split up across the plane. You dont always have any control over it - and I have never flown Easyjet or Ryanair.

Apologies if someone has already posted this but if you want a laugh have a look at this cheap flights song by Fascinating Aida:

I think it's unlikely that a whole plane would ever be filled totally with families with small children. If it is then the youngest kids should be prioritised so they are sat with one parent/guardian.

In my case dd was sat next to teenage lads and I was sat next to a retired couple. Yes I'm sure they probably did want to sit together and yes they have every right to but it would have been nice if when I asked them nicely with a hysterical child in tow if they would mind moving if they would have done. However they declined. It would have been nice if the stewardess would have been a bit more helpful and said that due to safety reasons and caa guidelines this person has a greater need than you and we are moving you. But she didn't

Dd pucked all over herself and her seat and the lad next to her though. I'd like to say I didn't snigger ever so slightly to myself but I'd be fibbing

Why should someone's seat be based on their ability to produce offspring?

Mmmmm because the CAA says it's a big safety risk not to do so.

I would have too!

The airlines will have protocols, and for health and safety reasons alone parents should sit with small children. What if the plane comes down - how does the child put their oxygen mask on?

No need to pay extra for seat allocation - let the airline figure out how families stay together.

It is very annoying that airlines do this. However, you have to accept that this is what they do because you have no power over it.

I don't want to pay to book seats either - but I do pay because I don't want to risk not sitting together and I don't want some sort of difficulty/argument when boarding or to make the plane late. If I boarded the plane and had my family of 4 seated together (as paid for), I would be cross if we were asked to move to accomodate someone who hadn't paid. I would proabably move, but I would feel that it was pretty scummy for someone not to pay and then take away something that someone else had paid for - when the airline policy was known in advance.

Basically the airlines will take your money - if you're willing to part with it. The whole flight is just one thing after another of encouraging you to spend spend spend. They even do scratch cards - bloody daft!

From caa website;

CAA guidelines ask airlines to develop procedures for the seat allocation of family groups, particularly when a group includes children. It is probable that family group members would seek each other out should an emergency evacuation be required, an action that could adversely affect the passenger flow rates towards emergency exits and might seriously affect the outcome of an evacuation.

Additionally, children and infants should be seated where they can be adequately supervised by an accompanying adult in the event of turbulence or a decompression in the cabin.

Airlines procedures should take into account the following factors:

Children, accompanied by adults, should ideally be seated in the same seat row as the adult. In wide-bodied aircraft, children and accompanying adults should not be separated by more than one aisle. Where this is not possible, children should be separated by no more than one seat row from accompanying adults.

Seat allocation procedures for family groups and suitable seating arrangements for large parties of children should reflect the above criteria.

Whenever small numbers of infants and children are travelling together, the airline should make every effort to ensure that they are allocated seats where they can be readily supervised by the responsible accompanying adult in both normal and abnormal conditions.

As a side issue. I recently got back from Majorca - and on the plane as I was looking around I was wondering if any were mumsnet members. Maybe there should be some sort of Mumsnet identification accessory.

I have been the singleton kicked out of my seat by a breathtaking show of parental entitlement.

I was doing the red eye back from New York. I had prebooked my window seat weeks in advance so I could sleep. I got to the gate early, reached my seat, got comfy with my blanket, book, etc. Then my neighbours arrive - a pregnant woman and a girl of about 7. The woman had apparently been plaguing the life out of the cabin crew to have an empty seat next to her (I think she was actually angling for an upgrade). Anyway, the steward asked me (whilst trying his best not to roll his eyes) if I would mind moving. I really didn't want to but if I didn't faced the prospect of having to climb over chippy pregnant bird if I wanted a pee so I gave in. They offered me a middle middle seat in premium or the door row extra legroom seat in economy. I made a snap decision to go with the extra legroom seat. Bad choice. I was next to a fat bloke with 8 elbows and I had forgotten that it gets freezing cold by the doors. I didn't sleep a wink.

And to make matters worse there had been no room to move my handbaggage to above my new seat as the plane had filled up while all this was happening so it had been left where it was and the steward who had asked me if I would move said he would bring it down for me as we were coming into land. He was nowhere to be seen so I told another one what had happened and asked if he could get it for me (from the other side of the plane and about 15 rows back). He refused. So I had to wait for everyone else to disembark to collect my stuff, making me last off the plane and the last in the queue for passport control (as well as tired and grumpy from lack of sleep).

All because the pregnant bitch wanted a seat she hadn't paid for! I hope she slept well...

I wouldn't pay the charge for a short flight. People will be happy to swap seats to avoid sitting next to an unaccompanied 2 year old!

Eurochick - that's shocking that the stewards would even ask you to move in that situation. That woman had a nerve, wouldn't cross my mind to try and haggle for an empty seat next to me.

IF I had paid extra to have an allocated seat, then I would not move unless the airline promised to refund my 20 quid. For me and my travelling companion, if we were then separated.
I say if, because I refuse to pay extra for this facility. My kids are older now, so it's not an issue any more, but even when they were younger I wouldn't pay, although neither would I expect to be able to sit all together in a group. We'd make jolly sure we arrived early enough to get on the plane sufficiently early to sit at least in twos. And even when we've been one of the last on board, we've always managed that. If the airline insist that a young child is accompanied by an adult, then they surely cannot insist that you pay for the 'privilege.'

BA 'invite' you to pay 20 quid or something per passenger to choose your seats when you book (unlike, say American Airlines where you can pick from the screen for free). I was warned about this by a friend who works for them, who told me that when you go online to check in 24 hours before the flight, you then get the option of picking your seats for free. Loads left.
I wonder how many people fall for that. And how many gazillions quid they rake in from it.

Ryanair are under the Irish CAA (or rather the other way round, guess which controls which) so in their case you'd have to look at their website for guidance. Which I can't be arsed to do.

You know, Viva, in all probability if somebody moved to help you it would be someone like me - much nicer in RL than I come across here. But it's nice to be asked politely, not confronted with a demand. And it's nice to hear a thank you. I hope you would do both.

This thread is actually making me cross. All this guff about sense of entitlement blah blah blah. It's not about what a parent WANTS It's about not making a 2 YEAR OLD sit with a stranger for 4 hours.

FFS seriously, it's not about the parent, it's about the child. Those of you defending the fact that that airlines make people pay to be guarenteed to sit next to their 2 year old, should actually think properly about what that means to the 2 year old. The little toddler that can't unclip and go to the loo on their own, that possibly needs help with their food, that might need a cuddle from mum and dad on take off because their ears hurt.

Really, is this the humanity we show little kids these days?