Per booked seats £££££

[Loveagoodbargain]

AIBU to think that the new aviation law is a joke? My travel agent told me that the aviation law states that a child must sit next to an adult on a flight but it does not have to be the adult with whom they are travelling.So my children could end up sitting next to ANYBODY on a flight unless we stump up £60 to pre book the seats together. If this is true it is the world gone mad and greedy travel companies are squeezing more money out of people going on holiday. Is this law for real...?

On the flight back from Johannesburg a few weeks ago there was a child of about five who was seated across the aisle from his mother. Thankfully because the plane wasn't full to capacity and KLM are awesome the cabin crew managed to switch some single travellers around so they could sit together. It's just another way for them to get more money out of passengers.

On flights I always end up with some absolute dick end in front of me who insists on having their seat right back. On the way out because our plane had been delayed for 12 hours people had transferred their flights so the plane was about half full. I was behind a front row (IYSWIM) which had 3 people with kids in it and the seat in front of me empty. Fabulous. Except some dick from further back decides he wants the leg room so comes and sits in front of me and puts his seat right fucking back. For all ten hours. About an hour before we landed I went to get my bag out of the overhead and it (genuinely!) accidentally fell out and landed on his head. Shame :)

Chuff, that sounds like the definition of poetic justice!

You are pleased you hit someone on the head because they had the cheek to not want to sit bolt upright for 10 hours and used the seat in the way it was designed to be used?

You sound nice.

I am nice thanks. I have manners not to have my seat semi horizontal for an entire 10 hour day flight unlike the idiot in front of me.

I think we could have a whole other thread about whether it's ok to recline your seat! I would say yes during night part of a night flight, but not in daytime and certainly not for whole of flight. (How could you actually eat on the table thing if the seat on front was reclined?)

Yes, reclining seats on planes could be a whole other thread, in fact I think it has been!

I don't think it makes someone an idiot to want to be comfortable. It doesn't bother me in the slightest if someone wants their seat back in front of me, nor have I ever known it to bother anyone I travel with, so it had never occurred to me that other people would get pissed off with it until I read it on MN.

You put seats upright when the meals are being served obviously, but I can't really see what difference it makes the rest of the time.

Speedy boarding I tell you.

CloudsAndTrees - for someone with very long legs it can be very, very uncomfortable...especially if the back of the seat is being pushed into the person's kneecaps.

Or when someone grabs the top of your seat when they are sitting behind you (and your hair!) to get out of their seat to go to the loo.

I get annoyed about overweight people coming into my space when I am in a row of 3, I dont like people reclining their seats mainly because I never sleep on planes and EVERYONE around me seems to be able, especially the person in front!

However I cannot really do anything about this and in life I find the best arguments are the ones you have a real chance of winning.... I cannot stop the person in front reclining a reclining seat and I cannot make the person using my seat as an extra space thinner....

Depending on the airline, you can choose your seats when checking in online (no extra charge) so if you log on early enough you get seats together (or apart gordy ). Not Ryanair though...

That sounds to me like the airline or travel company's trying to get extra cash out of you.

A travel agent tried a similar thing with me a couple of years ago when she told me I couldn't book my holiday with her unless I took out their v expensive travel insurance. Unfortunately for her I knew the law (which had changed shortly before this) and I told her that what she was trying to enforce was illegal and if she didn't want my business I'd go elsewhere.

She booked my holiday with no further mention of their insurance and I took out my own insurance for a damn sight less money.

Look up the laws and be sure that it's not a sales ploy to get more cash out of you!!

And there is exactly the problem. When people pay to be seated together, they will still be moved if safety dictates that they have to. I very much doubt that they would move passengers traveling with a child with SN, or any children, but if there were smaller children that have to be seated with a parent, or if a disabled person has to be seated in an aisle seat, then paying customers will have no choice but to move.

I think with most airlines you pay to pre book your seats, you don't actually pay to have guaranteed seats, so paying doesn't mean as much as customers are led to believe. Borninastorm is right, it is worth checking the law to see if you need to bother paying with small children.

Andro, my DH is tall and has long legs, he manages to be more comfortable if someone puts their seat back by putting his own seat back. I really don't think people can complain about seats being put back. I have known it to happen on a plane where one not particularly tall lady tried to insist that the cabin crew forced a man to make his seat be upright, they refused and said he had a right to put his seat back if he wanted to.

CloudsAndTrees, I can only go with what I've seen and I'm sure it's different for everyone. I have vivid memories of my DH's knees being black and blue after the person in front spent an entire flight trying to force their seat back - his knees were absolutely jammed against the back of the seat with no space to move.

Next time I fly I'll have my baby with me, who has to travel on my knee. Not sure how that would work if I had a seat-recliner sitting in front of me!
(When on a plane with first baby, the steward advised me to sit at the end of a row next to the aisle, and put baby next to me on seat - on the basis it would put others off sitting there!)

As long as you are not last to check in there is only a tiny chance of this happening. They use the fear factor to make you cough up the extra £££££.

We flew with Ryanair and to avoid this very issue I booked priority boarding only to discover that on the way back the airport did not have facility to organise it....

Basically if you could run fast you got on the plane first - so with my nearly 70yr old father and 4yr old we were on last but what really got my goat was a group of -ferel- people stood at the top of the steps going with their fingers up and shouting 'Fuck yrself priority boarders'

And because we were last on we got to sit (albeit together) in front of this delightful crew and I got a complete run down of their holiday -what they could remember- and my 4yr old learnt a new word... 'Cunt'

I just thank the lord that he was asleep for 'Jizz in her Whizz' story...

Never again!

Bloody hell doris!