To not book reserved flight seats for us and the kids?

[LittlePudding1]

Hi, I have a 6 year old and a 3 year old and was under the impression that even if we weren't all sat together together on a plane they would sit me with 1dc and dh with the other but a couple of people have told me they can sit you anywhere. Surely they wouldn't sit a 3 year old away from a parent and next to a random stranger, would they?

Different, if you were talking about toddlers, then fair enough, I agree that toddlers shouldn't be seated away from parents.

But a 9yo from a family that don't want to pay to sit together is fair game to be seated alone. There is absolutely no reason why a nine year old shouldn't be able to sit on a plane without their parent right next to them.

If your 9yo has higher needs than the average, why wouldn't you do whatever you had to do to ensure those needs are met?

It's not about safety, it's about ensuring your child is as comfortable as possible in a situation they find difficult, and ensuring that you don't impose on other people needlessly.

Of course, another way of looking at it is that you are paying less for not booking allocated seating. Not booking seats was always the norm - you just had to get to the airport before everyone else.

(ie paying/not paying)

You don't get it, do you? I will have paid! It is not like I am asking to travel for free!

Surely they wouldn't sit a 3 year old away from a parent and next to a random stranger, would they?

I think this sentence should read:

Surely a parent wouldn't sit their 3 year old away from them and next to a random stranger, would they, just to save a few quid on a plane fare?

^So now you are calling my parenting into question because I won't be conned into paying more for what should be a given. I am not selfish, my children come first, but I refuse to be conned into allowing that to happen. Good job I don't give a fuck about what you think of me, seeing as you don't know me & have no idea about my parenting, but judge away on this one aspect why don't you. Go for it.

It is because people like you buy into the anxiety that the airlines give off that we are in this position. If people stopped paying, there would be no issue.^

I give up. People aren't going to stop paying as the airlines are not going to stop offering it as a service so quit your moral crusade and accept that if you don't pay others will question your parenting as you have deliberately chosen to put you children in a situation they might not be happy with rather than paying to ensure they are happily seated with you.

If people stopped paying, there would be no issue.

Yes there would! Families got separated all the time before airlines offered passengers the chance to pay for booking specific seats, and they still would now.

I already addressed this point upthread, because it's bollocks.

Well I am going around in circles here. You guys keep paying for the "luxury" of sitting with your toddlers. And don't be surprised when they start adding everything else on top too.

impecunious, why do you keep going on about Ryanair? Selected seating isn't peculiar to them, I have paid for selected seating on Thomson, Monarch, Thomas Cook, CyprusAir, Britannia and Virgin so far. They are all businesses, just like Ryanair and just like all businesses want to make money wherever they can.

Until an actual LAW is passed that says children of a certain age MUST be seated with at least one parent, then the airlines can do as they wish.

You pay your money (or not) and take your chance.

You don't get it, do you? I will have paid! It is not like I am asking to travel for free!

It really is you that doesn't get it.

You have paid to have a seat, any seat, on the plane. It could be one at the back, middle, front, aisle, window, mid row.

Each ticket you buy entitles you to a seat somewhere, which the airline will allocate for you, so if the ticket bought for you turns out to be on row 3 by the window, and your nine year olds turns out to be on row 28 on the aisle, then you are already getting exactly what you have paid for.

We flew with Easyjet at christmas and found it much easier being able to choose and reserve seats anywhere on the plane with small children. Their staff were helpful too. However, Ryanair only have a couple of rows that you can reserve with small dcs so if they are booked you're stuffed. Ryanair are wankers, but they are the only ones who fly to our destination. I found it less stressful with Easyjet and put up with driving further to Gatwick instead of Stansted and also add an extra hour to our journey on arrival than fly with Ryanair if we can.

The way I see it is you get a baseline fare.
After that you take what options you want.
You want/ need to sit together in a group for whatever reason. Ok. There is a charge for that
You need a case in the hold. You pay for that.

As it stands I don't care where I sit, I take hand luggage
only and so do my kids and I pay on my debit card. My fare is minimal.

However if my needs were different I can see what options I have got and book accordingly.
What's difficult about that?

And if you don't like it fly with a company that gives you what you want 'free'. But has a high ticket price to begin with.

You don't get it, do you? I will have paid! It is not like I am asking to travel for free!

You don't get it, do you? You haven't paid for allocated seating. Allocated seating was added as an optional extra - it did not exist prior to this for normal travel.

I keep going on about Ryanair because their charge for allocated seating is so insanely high that it really is a question of flying without allocated seating or not flying at all. And no, there's often no choice to use them because they are the only ones that fly to certain places.
I suppose you think we should therefore stay at home.

Of course, there are a lot of straw men about here - it's in the vast majority of cases, it is not a question of turfing someone else out of their allocated seat, since 90% of the plane is unallocated. It's a question of asking an adult, travelling without children, to move from one seat to another seat. Both have nasty cheap upholstery and a little table to pull down. One might be an aisle seat or a window seat, but you know what? I'm an adult. If it's a question of a 2-year-old not sitting next to a parent, and I'm a lone adult, then I'll give up my cloud-admiring privileges for the sake of common humanity. I find it astounding that others would not, but then I guess this is the country that voted Thatcher in.

I suppose most of the people arguing the 'your child your choice' would also argue that wheelchair users should pay extra for the airline to carry their wheelchair? For once it is actually a direct equivalent, not like parking threads or the like. A small child CANNOT travel without a parent, just like a wheelchair user MUST have a wheelchair. It's just as unreasonable to have to pay to sit next to your 2-year-old as to have to pay for a wheelchair.

There are a few people on here with impecabably behaved children - well done them.

Not sure what Lying thinks she would say to a child in meltdown that would magically turn it into the perfect child (like hers).

I think this issue needs a law suit, maybe after a traumatic bumpy flight or a near miss landing.
There must be a No Win No Fee company wanting to take it on.

Just out of interest when tickets are booked as a group why aren't they just allocated together? Like theatre seats.
Sorry if this has already been answered but I've often wondered.
My dd was 6 when she sat apart from me next to a young couple practically having it off.
Luckily when the girl put her hand down his trousers I was visiting her so threatened them was able to deal with it.
They were also found later to be in possession of cocaine!
My solution was to give up flying buy a camper van and hey presto we all get to be together on our journey to holiday.

I'd be happy to move out of one aisle or window seat into another aisle or window seat if I was travelling alone.

What I don't like is the assumption that I should move if I'm an adult traveling with another adult, or that I should move out of a seat that is vaguely comfortable into one on the middle of the row, where I hate sitting.

Carrying a wheelchair has always been free though hasn't it?
Allocated seating has not. It is an optional extra introduced relatively recently.

impecunious, if you ask a lone adult if they would mind moving to another seat, then they probably wouldn't. Thats fine and isn't going to cause any angst.

If you ask an adult travelling with another adult to move and they wouldn't, then you have to accept that. You don't know why they may have said no, they may have very good reasons that they do not wish to share with you. You cannot assume that they are just being selfish any more than that adult can assume that you are a bad parent for not pre-booking your seats.

To crow about how badly behaved your child would be, without knowing the reasons that people did not want to move is very bad mannered and horribly entitled behaviour.

TimeofChange... If the flight attendant didn't tell the parent to come and sort the child, I would. There's a difference between a distressed child and one being naughty and attention-seeking, or there is in my book.

Either way, it's for the parent to sort out but any child kicking, climbing on me or anything of that ilk will be told - by me - to stop it. I have experience of that because that's what I tell my own - and it works. No perfect children here but no inattentive or lazy parenting either.

The thing is impecunious, it isn't about common humanity.

It is about people being perfectly able to avoid this situation, but because they believe they're entitled to get for free what others pay for, then they don't.

Still I imagine little Jimmy will be perfectly happy when mummy explains "no sorry darling, we can't sit together because mummy doesn't believe in funding the capitalist beast"

Just for arguments sake, each seat on the plane happens to be filled with one adult travelling next to one child. Who moves then to accomodate those who aren't willing to pay?

Yes, in an ideal world children should be sitting with their parents automatically. But this isn't an ideal world and I would be doing everything in my power for a stress free journey by paying to have seats with my child.

Actually, many airlines do charge extra for medical equipment. I have travelled with disabled people before who have been allowed their one wheelchair to travel free, but have been forced to pay for the mobile hoist they need, or for the toileting chair they need. And it's not cheap either.

They are far more entitled to have their essential equipment go for free than a parent has to have their older child travel next to them. But they don't so they make the choice to pay, or not to travel.

They don't turn up at the airport and demand the other passengers have a whip round to cover the cost of their equipment the way parents turn up and demand their child has to be next to them.

I'm not crowing. Surely it's axiomatic that if I stick my two-year-old on his own for a 6 hour flight, he's very soon going to be uncontrollably distressed? Whatever someone's reasons for not moving, they have to be pretty bloody brilliant to trump that. And if one person genuinely can't move, it beggars belief that on the entire plane there will be nobody else able to do so. That is why I refuse to give Michael O'Leary 200 quid extra every time I fly. It's a faith in common decency, which is pretty lacking on this thread.

Ledk: The airline failed in their Duty of Care.

They have Risk Assessments and this should be a priority but O'Leary is a law unto himself.

What couold happen on a longhaul flight, when lights go out and blankets on.
A sleeping child could be molested.
I don't see paedophiles everywhere, but it is airlines responsibilty.