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 :-)

Must get off MN or DH will divorce me. Interesting thread though.

I think that the reason people prebook is to sit together - whether they are just friends, a couple, a family etc. I would think that the number of people travelling alone (to holiday destinations. rather than on business) would be a small minority and it would only be them who don't mind where they sit. But even they might mind - they might be a nervous flyer and want a certain position.

These threads just make me want to weep - we fly 6 times a year, my kids are entitled etc etc.
We all need to fly less (or not at all preferably unless essential to see family, or forced to by work) and the budget airlines are massively responsible for the huge increase in flights and the accompanying environmental damage.
You really don't need to fly on holiday, and you certainly don't have an entitlement to cheap flights ( unreasonably cheap so you do so again). If you choose to fly by bargain basement airlines then you must expect cattle class treatment, probably the best option is to vote with your feet and stop flying for recreational purposes

Fontsnob - well said.

Pre-allocating seats shouldn't be an option. You've already bought your ticket, - and like on a train - you should find out where you're sitting when you get on.

limetrees a lightbulb has gone off in my head! YES!!! That must be exactly how those bastards did it!!! (And now I know what to do for next time - sod the baby, I will prebook as I need the extra leg room!!)

Bwa ha ha... evil laugh....

It is a Civil Aviation Authority rule that a child must be sat near at least one of their family members in order to facilitate the safe evacuation of the plane for the benefit of all as otherwise unattended young children may prevent other passengers from getting out in a timely manner. It has nothing to do with niceness or special privileges or bumping people out of reserved seats they have booked in advance and paid extra for - it is as necessary to the safe function of the aircraft as seating able bodied people near the exists so they can assist the crew with door removal and so on if necessary, which is also a rule, and why people on crutches as so on aren't allowed to sit near exits.

If an airline refuses to seat you together, then by all means invoke this rule and make it clear you will complain to the CAA on your return if it is not complied with.

And those posters being critical of people and insinuating that this is akin to queue jumping in the supermarket need to stop judging and start applying their brains to the situation.

loshad recreational purposes? We fly to see family who would otherwise never see their grandkids. And I agree that it's a terrible way to travel, but we live literally half way around the world, and I don't see us traveling by boat.... We buy carbon offsets, btw, to help offload the guilt (and also actually invest in alternative energies....)

LOL at "those bastards"!

Glad you will be able to sort it for next time.

SeniorWrangler - I think it's you who needs to apply brain to situation.

The airline will comply with the CAA rules at the end of the day. Planes don't fly when small children are separated from their parents - they ask other passengers to move to accomodate people who won't pay because they think it's OK for other people to pay for what they need.

Another scenerio involving needs of small children: You need carseats for small children. You don't hire a car abroad and expect carseats to be included in the price do you? You pay extra so your children can be safe and legal.

I got bloody flamed last year for posting that i should sit next to my child
She had to sit by snoggers and then male snogger spent ages in the loo and was found to be in possesion of class A drugs and chucked off the plane (we were still on the ground) it made me consider how innapropriate it is to seat children by strangers-i was called an over protective loon!!!

I cant understand why the seats just arent numbered as they are booked eg you book for 5 and you get seats 1-5.

Stayed in uk this year,it was luch to just jump in the car and eat crisps all sat together haha

If it was me, I would pay, just to be sure.

On the other hand, we failed to prebook seats on ba once when flying with baby ds. We had booked a bassinet, so knew we would have bulkheads, and naively assumed we woudl be seated together, but one of us had the bulkhead seat and one of us was halfway down the plane. Not really a problem but we thought we might ask the person who had the other bulkhead to swap (politely) just in case.

It was a youngish man who was looking very pleased with his extra legroom until we turned up - I have never seen anyone move so fast. Clearly legroom was not worth sitting next to a 6 month old for 8 hours. Especially as the bassinet goes across both seats. I felt sorry for him really..

My mother is terrified of flying and always goes to extreme lengths to book an aisle seat so she can pretend she is on a coach . She had a hysterical breakdown on the plane once when someone asked her to swap to a window, to the extent that one of the cabin crew went and got her some brandy before they took off! So there might be genuine reasons that an adult without children doesn't want to swap.

Lime trees - planes do fly when small children are separated from their parents. As I've already posted on this thread it happened to me. The stewardess made no attempt to ask anyone else to move and the couple I ended up next to had not paid for priority boarding or allocated seats. Meanwhile my young child was halfway down the plane on her own for a five hour flight visibly upset.

MJ, fine, scratch the car seat analogy.

I still think that you are selfish not paying, knowing that the airline will have to move passengers who have paid to meet their legal obligation to seat you with your child. It's that person you should consider, not just yourself and the airline.

I'm sure on a no frills airline the staff can find someone who hasn't paid extra for priority boarding or seat allocation and ask them to move. IME only a minority of people pay for priority boarding. Obviously if everyone paid for it there'd be no point in having it.

yes, the charges are unreasonable, I am not defending the airline. I am defending the person asked to give up their seat which they paid to book.

I wouldn't pay-DCs that age would have to be near you. I would guarantee that people would swap-it is ridiculous! Just hand a sick bag to the person in the next seat and say she will likely be sick and need some help! Followed by 'I am in seat 23A -please find me if she wants the toilet' and ' she will need help with the meal'. Who in their right mind is going to let it happen?! My DC would probably have howled anyway. No need to pay extra for what they will have to do anyway.

But what about people who haven't paid extra for that seat being asked to move?

If everyone stopped paying these additional and unreasonable charges the airline would just have to allocate on arrival like they used to do. And there would be no entitlement to seat allocation - everyone has bought a plane ticket. But the little ones get priority to sit with their parents - as it should be.

That is fine.

That post was to Viva