To Thank Thomas Cook for clarifying the matter of paying to sit beside your children

[Groovee]

I flew Thomas Cook today to Florida. I paid extra for seats together and got to choose where we were sitting.

We decided to go on last because we had seats and there were near the cabin door. When I got settled a family were not happy that they had 5 single seats. The cabin crew were quite adamant that they could not ask customers who have paid to choose their seats to move.

So last weeks thread is solved

impecunious referred to a child 3 rows away from its parents.

It is fucking disgusting that we have to pay for seat allocation. Everything is a fucking add on nowadays. It's shit.

They'll ask us to pay to use the bog next. Ah, isn't that Ryan Air?!

Civil Aviation Authority gives this information:

Families, children and infants

The seating of children close by their parents or guardians should be the aim of airline seat allocation procedures for family groups and large parties of children.

Young children and infants who are accompanied by adults, should ideally be seated in the same seat row as the adult. 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. This is because the speed of an emergency evacuation may be affected by adults trying to reach their children.

Whenever a number of infants and children are travelling together the airline should make every effort to ensure that they can be readily supervised by the responsible accompanying adults.

Child seats and child restraint devices

Infants under the age of two need to be secured whenever the seat belt sign is on. This can be achieved through the use of a seat belt loop provided by the airline to secure the infant on an adult?s lap, or by using a child restraint device i.e. car type seat, or an alternative provided by the airline.

Forwards facing child restraint devices may be installed on both forward and rearward-facing passenger seats but only when fitted in the same direction as the passenger seat on which it is positioned. Rearward-facing child restraint devices can only be fitted to forward-facing passenger seats.

Child restraint devices can only be fitted on a suitable aircraft seat using the type of seat belt/harness for which they were designed. For example a child restraint device that needs to be secured by a car type seat belt which includes a shoulder harness, cannot be installed on an aircraft seat that is fitted with a lap belt only.

The permitted use of restraint devices can differ between airlines, so it is important to contact your airline in advance of your booking or flight to ensure that the device that you may wish to use is acceptable.

Seats by emergency exits

Some passengers may not be permitted to sit in a seat row next to an emergency exit. This is because if the emergency exit is needed, it is important the exit can be opened and the aircraft evacuated as quickly as possible.

The following passengers are among those who should not be allocated, or directed to, seats by emergency exits:

Passengers with physical or mental impairment or disability to the extent that they would have difficulty in moving quickly if asked to do so.
Passengers who have significant sight or hearing impairment to the extent that it might be difficult for them to respond to instructions quickly.
Passengers who, because of age or sickness, have difficulty in moving quickly.
Passengers who, because of physical size, have difficulty in moving quickly.
Children (whether accompanied or not) and infants.
Passengers travelling with animals i.e. assistance dogs.

www.caa.co.uk/homepage.aspx?catid=1759

Sure ivykaty, but they are "should" things, not "must" things.

They are guidelines only, they do not have to be met.

Thomas Cook airlines FAQ:

My child is travelling alone. Who will take care of him/her?

children under age 5 : may not travel alone
children between ages 5 and 12: assistance is obligatory
children between ages 12 and 16: assistance is not obligatory
Assistance costs ? 50 per child per direction. You must provide in advance the name, address and telephone number of the person who will bring the child and of the person who will collect the child.

Please note: a request for assistance must be submitted to our Contact Center in advance.

www.thomascookairlines.com/frequently_asked_questions/overview.aspx#{1ACCC6F3-AB79-4101-9ECB-16780F055E99} scroll to very bottom of the page

So if Thomas Cook deem your dc can't travel alone or assistance or obligatory - then they need to be reminded of there own rules.

it is easy to find the rules for children travelling alone on any airline website, print them out and take them with you when you fly and then show them to the cabin crew....it makes it really awkward for them as they can't break their own rules and when you are armed with the evidence of the airlines rules they can't change them either

BA aims to put young children with family as well.

Also a child who is boarding with family is not "travelling alone" so those rules wouldn't apply IYSWIM.

I think the other thread was basically about ryanair who have no such rules.

Ryanair have charged me £10 each way to choose the seat I want. I don't consider that unreasonable in order to relieve stress and know exactly where I'm sitting.

I would hope that most airlines would sit a 2 or 3yo with a parent but with ryanair (I fly with them sometimes for work) it's just every person for themselves and the air crew don't really have anything to do with it past giving the obligatory safety talk and then trying to flog you scratchcards.

As a lone passenger I never book a seat and would always move. I don't care where I sit (well I prefer a window!) but still would move so a child could sit with its parent.

I think maybe the real lack of seats only comes in on summer holiday type flights - I am on business travel type flights and can't imagine there would ever be a situation where there was no-one happy to move.

It is up to you but I have never paid to sit next to my dc and never had a problem getting seats together.

I will admit though i have never gone with ryan air and never would book with them.

I don't get this thread. Surely this is a 'you pay peanuts you will deal with monkeys situation'. If you fly with ryanair then you can expect them to fleece you.
We've flown long haul twice with the kids, never paid for seats together & found both BA & American Airlines to be accomodating.
Don't fly ryan air & you can deal with sensible rational people.

If I were travelling for work I probably wouldn't prebook but I'm going on a holiday flight in August and I'd rather guarantee a degree of comfort in advance if at all possible.

exotic On the way back from Menorca last year there was an announcement that there was a man travelling with his young daughter in two separate seats and could anyone swap with them? Not sure how old she was but not much bigger than dd who was just 2 at the time. I remember looking round the plane which (being a lovely toddler friendly daytime flight to toddler friendly Menorca in perfect-weather-for-toddlers May) was jam packed full of toddlers and thinking he might be in trouble here. Not sure how it ended but they didn't ask again so hopefully he found someone to swap.

I don't get people who don't book seats though. With Thomson it is a really small amount of money compared to the cost of the holiday so why make your life hard? I think they will (and should) try to get people to swap if necessary but presumably only so one adult is with the kids - not both if travelling as a couple. And it makes things so much more fraught. And travelling with kids is only just bearable if things go well!

so if I asked if you would mind swapping seats with me, you would check that the seat would be of equal comfort first?

Yes. I prebook because I like an aisle seat because I get cramps in my legs if I sit too long, so like to go for a wander down the back of the plane and stand up for a while mid flight. I don't like clambering over people, so I always go for the aisle. If you wanted me to swap my aisle seat for a middle seat (::shudder::) or next to an obese person spilling over the armrests, then I would decline.

When I went on a flight last September I was told by the airline that they can split a family in terms of parting the parents, but they always have to sit one parent with a your child.

I'd have insisted on an upgrade to accommodate

I expect it happens on the odd occasion- mistakes happen. Booking us into seats that didn't exist must have caused them problems!
I would swap if asked very nicely and if I got a refund of my booking fee. I wouldn't swap if the parent took the 'entitled ' view -and if they handed me wet wipes etc I would call their bluff- I am just as capable of looking after a 2yr old as they are and safety wouldn't be compromised.

I think the lesson fr

I certainly wouldn't move if one parent was next to the child- the family don't need to be together. They can book if they want to guarantee it.

I think the lesson from these threads is never fly Ryan air because it turn normal people into raving arseholes all in the service I making Michael whatsisname another couple of million. This kind of appalling customer service will only stop when people vote with their feet and pay a reasonable fare for air travel. the balance is tipping anyway, the normall airlines have had to streamline to compete and Ryanair an easy jet have had to raise prices after initial business model of ludicrously cheap to lure people in.

you could not pay me to travel on Ryan air, it simply isn't worth it. my in laws live in France near a town that is served only by Ryan air, supposedly (that old trick of luring the retirees out with a new airport and ludicrously cheap flights, only to bump them up a few years later once they were all dependent). in fact, you can fly BA to a nearby city, hire a car and take a pleasant couple of hours drive through lovely countryside to reach them. and you can take a reasonable amount of luggage without paying through the nose for it. last time we went, it cost is about £30 more I clouding car hire and petrol. that's where I'd spend my money, not in paying to sit next to my children.

the Thomas cook argument is ludicrous as well. they are not a budget airline, many people have paid 1000s of ponds to go on a family holiday with them and most people are paying 4 or 500 quid a flight.

You get what you pay for- if they have rock bottom prices they make up in other ways.

they don't have rock bottom prices, anymore. that was their initial business plan. if you do a like for like comparison by the. time you've paid for all the extras like having luggage, children, buggies etc they aren't rock bottom prices. they just think people are too stupid to realise that.

Exactly- but that way they get to advertise the cheap price- people need to factor in the 'extras' to get the true cost. If you want to keep it cheap sit anywhere, don't take a suitcase etc.

With Ryanair and Easyjet - you don't always pay cheap fares. Why do folk always say you get what you pay for when two people sitting next to each other might be paying a difference of hundreds of pounds.

Just don't understand why folk can't see it's immoral of an airline to create this kind of fear and panic with people travelling with their young children. It just be normal for a young child t be seated with an a complying adult. Airlines shouldn't be charging people for this 'privilege'.

People keep saying it's all about the cheap fares, cheap airlines.

It isn't. Normal, scheduled flights, premier airlines and airlines/companies providing package holidays all do it too.

We are with Thomson this year and got an email at the 60 day point I think telling us that the flight would open for online selected seating the next day. I logged on as soon as I could and loads of seats were already gone - people stay up until midnight to book the seats they want.

We paid £75 for allocated seats for DH, DD and I. Extra Legroom seats are different and a different (dearer) price.

I have paid for selected seating on Thomson, Monarch, Thomas Cook, CyprusAir, Britannia and Virgin so far. CyprusAir and Virgin were normal scheduled flights, the rest as part of package holidays.

Ryanair may be bastards, but they aren't the only ones that ask for payment for allocated seats.

My dd1 looked at going to Spain last half term, for her and her two siblings it was over £1200 for three return flights to Mercia with Ryan air. I don't think that is cheap when you can go by train for £400 each, ok you start in London on the afternoon and get there the following tea time but you can take luggage fro free and you get sat next to each other as part of the booking and it is a pleasant way to travel if you have a bit more time.

That said wasn't there an airline this weekend sat for 30 hours on the tarmac, the budget airline flybee at a hot airport and they wouldn't let the passengers of the plane