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?

I am flying next week with BA - on looking at my booking they have already allocated my seats I can pay to change them but I am and always have been allocated adjacent seats to them. There is not a hope that I would be separated from them during a flight - I would refuse to get on the plane

How entitled Rosa? And refusing to get on a plane would achieve what exactly? Oh yes- you wouldn't get where you wanted to go!

If you pay for a service you are guaranteed it, if you don't you take a chance.

You aren't guaranteed it Bear, you may well be asked to move to accommodate a family.

You can be asked celtic but as others have experienced, you don't have to do so and, if you have forked out in order to have the seating arrangements of your choice, then why should you move to accommodate someone who didn't pay for the privilege?

original I wouldn't think you were a mug for swapping, I'd be grateful. The fees are optional and I'm sure the airlines think everyone who pays is a mug. If no-one did, we'd all sit with our families.

Clouds.

1. Children age 2 and up have their own seat on planes
2. The guidelines are not rules. They are guidelines. The airlines do not have to follow them, and from some of the posts on here it seems they are not
3. You talk about age 6 and up. Now you are saying it is appropriate for age 3 and up? Or not? A bit confused.

Ι have never paid for allocated seats with easyjet. During the booking procedure they ask for the age of the passengers and they say that this is in order to make sure that minors are seated next to an adult in their party. It makes sense. We always have either 2+2 or 3+1, both situations work just fine.
I wouldn't bother paying, I wouldn't rely on other passenger's kindness (as many have mentioned, they don't HAVE to swap), but the airline has the legal obligation to sit you next to your children. If they don't, kick up a fuss, show them you know your rights. You shouldn't have to pay for you're legally entitled to, even if it's £1. To me it's a matter of principle.
(having specific preferences over seat location is a different matter).

The guidelines say my 3yo should be sat with one of us. I'm fine with that, the other will sit alone. The airline should accommodate that, and if that clashes with whatever add ons they have chosen to sell that is not my problem. I'm not going to pay extra for it, and if everyone did the same more of us could probably sit with our companions.

Bear because having a toddler sit on it's own on a plane isn't going to do anyone any favours?

Not the parents, not the people around it, not the 2 yo itself, not the airline.

I am just totally amazed that people are saying that it is reasonable for airlines to do this! In the event of an emergency, people can't be expected to take responsibility for someone else's child, the flight attendants will have plenty of other stuff going on, how can the airlines think this is a good plan?

Even if it's just a toddler pissing itself because there's no-one to take it to the toilet, that's got to be a downside for the airline surely, with their fast turn-arounds and everything?

twilight and celtic it is not the law or the rules, they are simply guidelines.

there is nothing to say that children have to be seated with an adult they know, and certainly I have seen threads on MN (and a poster on here) who were separated / were going to be separated from 2 / 3 yo and the airlines were fine with that. In the posts I have read, people have offered to swap rather than have a very small child next to them / a long way from a parent or carer.

So maybe if the airline only sold allocated for a max of 60% of the plane and those people plus special cases got on first then each child under whatever the age is could board with an adult next, then everyone else got on last and filled the gaps.

twilight it is not a legal requirement and you'd get nowhere trying to show them you know your rights when you are actually wrong.

It is common sense and personally I'd rather move than be seated next to someone elses unaccompanied child but if the only seats which have not been prebooked are not next to each other, wtf are the airline supposed to do?

bear I'm sure that the airline have final say in who sits where.

With our holiday booking we could choose and pay for our seats online 8 weeks before departure.

We checked after about 3 days, and over half the flight/seats were already allocated. On quite a few rows there were single seats. We couldn't take the chance - I refuse to be separated from DD, but I need DH close too (I am a shite flyer). So we paid.

It's a scam, of course it is, but I have a feeling there are going to be a number of unhappy families on that flight, and no, I won't be swapping, sorry.

Bear, when you book the flight they can see the ages of the children, so they should automatically allocate the seats, that's what they're supposed to do, and that's what they do ime.

It is a legal requirement, it's human rights legislation and airlines know it, most people don't. There was a case years ago in the states and since then they're supposed to deal with it. However if they can get away with it they will, cheaper for them, and convincing customers to pay in the future.

You might want to google it, can't remember dets.

I'm sure you are right nice but why would they risk pissing off passengers who paid to prebooked seats in order to accommodate people who just think they are entitled to them because they have children when the airline have no legal obligation to ensure they are seated together.

I don't agree with paying to book your seats full stop but I don't think you should believe you are exempt from the charges but still have the seats you want if you have children.

But on a packed plane full of families there are bound to be some parents who cannot sit with their children, as people tend to sit 2 to a 3 seat row, leaving odd seats dotted around the plane, so the last people on end up with those seats.

I'd rather not be in that position.

Oddboots that is what easyjet used to do - they had no allocated seating but certain people went first (people with small children, those who'd paid etc). Of course the other people followed straight afterwards and as I discovered people who aren't with children/vulnerable in some way are quick and shovey and I am slow and a bit disabled and was carrying a baby and it was stairs and they were steep and people were shoving me and I was trying to hold the baby in one arm (she was about 7mo) and hold onto the handrail with the other and try to get down the stairs which is tricky at the best of times and it was awful.

So despite being "first" in theory, I ended up being last and utterly shaken.

This may be why I have a slight problem with the way some low cost airlines work with this stuff.

IME airlines do the absolute minimum they can get away with and until it becomes and actual violation of law to fail to seat children with parents they won't do so no matter what the guidelines say.

and the motto is avoid cheap airlines!

So there are people who are saying that in the event a parent and 2yo are on a plane and haven't paid the extra, they think it is right that they should be seated well away from each other?

I just find that mind-boggling.

I guess that's capitalism for you

It really wouldn't be difficult for them to seat young children with an adult. It really wouldn't. the reason they don't is that creates anxiety which in turn makes people empty their wallets which then feeds in on itself as people who have paid extra won't move (obvious, psychology innit) and you have a few cases of small children by themselves and before you know it everyone is paying through the nose to avoid a situation which has been created by the airline.

i can't imagine that many people saying they wouldn't swap seats on a tube, train or bus so a 2 or 3 yo could sit next to a parent/carer.

It's all bollocks. Passengers are being fleeced. Now you pay foran allocated seat, to put a bag in the hold, a meal (fair enough as the food is often crap anyway). They aren't offering cheap flights - they are making up the difference by charging all these extras. Next it will be a fee to use the loo, using the airbridge to board, to get a seatbelt, to get a sick bag - they need to be tackled on it - thieving arses.

Bear I don't think I should have the seats I want. If travelling with adults and older kids I'm not bothered. But I do my 3yo not to sit alone, don't care where on the plane. I do expect that to be accommodated.

Good post NiceTabard. You've expressed what I was thinking through in my mind and what LtEveDallas describes too.

I have never been on an areoplane, so if we was ever to go on holiday i wouldn't have had a clue that it is wise to book seats as well as flights.

seems abit of a rip off, but i would pay it to be by my children.