...to NOT pay extra to book pre-assigned plane seats with Monarch

[parakeet]

We are family of four, with our two children, six and eight. It's a 3.5 hour flight each way and we need at least one parent with each child (or one parent with the both of them would also be fine). It would cost us £64 to book assigned seating for all four of us, each way and it seems a bit much. Am I being mad (or selfish somehow) to think "they can't let the children sit by themselves" and let Monarch sort it out somehow once we've boarded, if we have difficulties getting each child with a parent?

I've seen threads on here where people are criticised for not booking their seats beforehand. But to me it seems like this is a problem of the airline's making when they could easily assign seats at check-in, like in the "olden days".

I would imagine you would be fine in sets of 2 op.

Don't pay but don't get upset if your not together and don't expect people who have paid to move to accomodate you.

I think it is outrageous that airlines can extort extra money from families so that they can guarantee to be sat together.

OH always pays extra for an extra legroom seat, but that is because the seat pitch on regular seats is too small for his long legs. DD and I just take our chances.

CAA guidelines on seating children here:

www.caa.co.uk/default.aspx?catid=2207&pageid=12706

The only reason a charge is made to pre-select seats is for the airline to make money. The cost to the airline to allocate a seat is not £25. The airline should know how many children and their parents/carers are due to fly and therefore should ensure they're seated together. I'm sure parents/children don't care whether they're at the front/back or by a window, as long as they're together.

The people being unreasonable here are the airline. It would be more sensible, if a charge is to be made, to levy it per group, so it shouldn't cost any more for five people to sit together than it does two people. It's no wonder families don't book and pay for pre-allocated seats as the costs are prohibitive.

Choosing seats for leg room is a different matter altogether and asking someone to move from a seat selected for this reason so a family can sit together is unreasonable and should not be necessary.

Monarch can and will sit kids separate from parents. Me, dh, and dd were totally separated on a flight from Tenerife by monarch when she was 7yo.

Oh and we'd been first at the check in so don't think that been early to the airport will mean you'll be first at the gate. Dd was having a bad time in the toilet when they called the gate.

No one moved when I asked them to, dd was sobbing, the air hostess was shouting at me as the plane needed to take off. They slammed the door shut behind me as I ran onto the plane and we were actually taxi-ing down the runway as I was having the conversation with the stewardess.

Its a CAA regulation, but its a regulation not a law. I believe it also mentions children under 5 as the main focus but also says something about "try to seat families together".

I think we were unlucky but it happens.

Sod it, I'm gonna pay. I just can't face the stress. The travel is stressful enough anyway.

Thanks all.

Ha ha

Are you going to muster all your sense of outrageous entitlement and risk asking another passenger to move? Good for you, op. these airlines should accommodate people travelling with small children.

I never pre-book unless it's free. I am quite happy to point out the fairly obvious problems of safety and that my children tend to vomit alot flights.

Solidarity op (punches air)

As long as you make sure that your DC are stated as CHILD fares, you ought not to get separated.

I flew with them year before last and sadly the agent didn't know/state that DS (6) was a child so on the way back we were split up.

The flight crew however found 2 seats together for us.

Just as well because the seats we had been allocated were with the most godawful GM who as soon as her DD went off to the loo, or with either one of her children, would slag the poor woman off to her kids literally from the moment the mother left to the moment she returned. I had to move in the Departure Lounge as I was worried I'd explode and tell this woman what her mother was saying about her to her kids.

but i digress...

Even if the airline says they always sit a child with an adult, you should check what they class as together. I am pretty sure some airlines I have flown with say that the seat in front or behind counts, so you might not end up next to your children even if they allocate seats "together".

Also, would you be happy for someone to be booted out of seats together that they had paid for, so that you and your children could sit together? I think it is selfish to expect people to move just because they don't have children with them. If you don't want to pay you should be prepared to sit separately from your children if enough other people have booked that there aren't any seats together.

Also, when are you flying? On one charter flight in August so many people prebooked with children that there weren't any seats together for those with children that hadn't prebooked and they did have to separate children from parents, some quite young. In school holidays there are likely to be a lot of other children on the plane and lots will prebook.

I pay up (even though it annoys me). I factor it in as a cost when I am looking at holiday prices.

I'd put the blanket over my clothes and hand your kid a sick bag before plugging my headphones in and enjoy paying the seat I paid for.

No one likes to pay, well, then you take what you get.

Parakeet I flew Monarch and it wasn't a problem. I think the odds are low tbh.

I'm not pre booking for a 10 hr flight to Mexico in August either. Frankly, I will delighted but very surprised if they sit my 2yr old and 4yr old with passengers other than dh and I. .

I'll say straight away that I don't work for an airline/airport and don't even fly often so may be WAY off the mark here but does no-one find it the least bit suspicious that so many airlines just can't seem to manage to seat people together without extortionate prebooking fees? It's alright saying 'if you want to be together you have to pay' but why?

There can surely only be a small number of 'premium' seats (extra legroom etc) and can understand paying to get them but paying so much just to get any old seats together when there's loads of them (ordinary seats I mean)? Wouldn't it make far more sense to have a system like trains, where you book a preference - ie, by a window, on an aisle, by a bulkhead, not by a bulkhead etc and then they just work out the best way of fitting everyone on? You could even specify whether being together is the priority and then they can seat the families in the 'sh*t' seats but together and other people scattered about in their preference of seat.

Looks to me like the airlines are charging the earth while making it look like their fares are cheap and ripping everyone off, prebook or not then laughing all the way to the bank while the prebookers rip shreds off the non-booking families.

Lets all not forget the poor couple who were separated despite the husband being disabled from the neck down. They'd actually paid for allocated seating. He relied on his wife for everything.

He ended up falling down in the airplane and obviously couldnt get himself up :(

Looks to me like the airlines are charging the earth while making it look like their fares are cheap and ripping everyone off

Yes, that is exactly how it works. They have very cheap seats and make a profit from various extra charges such as baggage, seat booking, food etc

This isn't a secret though. If you don't want to pay to book a seat then fly with a more expensive airline that allows you to do it for free.

We are flying with Jet2 this year and I think we get allocated seats anyway without paying extra.

Never bothered paying, never had any troubke, just don't be late checking in.

I think it is outrageous that airlines can extort extra money from families so that they can guarantee to be sat together.

Yes, same here.

We're flying to Ibiza in the summer, I'm not fussed whether we sit together or not to be honest, I have to fork out the extra £10 each, each way to ensure someone else doesnt have the pleasure of sitting next to my child

It's just a ruse to extort more money out of us

I totally get the extra charges for things like baggage and food - you can get around that by just taking hand luggage (only managed that before kids I admit though!), eating before/after you fly etc, they are added 'luxuries' (albeit very basic ones) but sitting a child next to a parent is not an added benefit or a luxury, it's a safety essential so I don't see why they should be able to make extra money out of it.

I'd have little sympathy for someone complaining that their DH got to sit elsewhere and they had to sit with the kids as at least a parent was with the kids but expecting parents to hand over £££'s just so a responsible adult is with their children is ridiculous imo. They wouldn't be allowed to lower the price further and charge for listening to the safety announcement/ help getting a lap belt on/ access to the oxygen masks so why should they be allowed to charge for another safety aspect?

Also, providing food and carrying baggage costs the airline extra money (nowhere near what they charge I grant you but still) - sitting families together costs nothing (they still have to deal with allocating seats regardless) so there's no direct cost they need to cover by charging.

My point was that they're getting away with charging for something essential and that doesn't cost them any extra yet people who are paying it have somehow been convinced to have a go at people who don't pay rather than the airline, which they must be over the moon with!

You should be fine if you check In nice and early....

Bunbaker, you are correct, you check in 28 days before on-line and you then know your seat numbers! They are brilliant, we are using them again in summer hols.

Me too Stinkle flights to Ibiza in school holidays in July £600 for all three of us! :)

Absolutely - if everyone specifies preferences and the airline notes requirements, I'm sure someone, somewhere can muster up a nice computer programme to allocate seating on a fair basis. It's all turned into a bit of an expensive bun fight, ultimately to the airline's financial benefit. Bit of honesty on the real cost of flying wouldn't go amiss.

Probably the reason why I rarely fly.

I'm sure someone, somewhere can muster up a nice computer programme to allocate seating on a fair basis.

You'd think so wouldn't you.

As it stands at the moment, if I don't pay the ££ a head, each way to ensure I'm seated next to my child, some random adult might have to.

Mine are a bit older, and would be fine for a couple of hours but would random adult be happy to sit next to random child?

It's not rocket science to allocate child tickets to adult tickets and seat them together. I had to enter my children's dates of birth when I booked our flights - 2 adults, 2 children = allocate one adult to one child

But why would you do that, when you can make ££££ on a flight, for basically, doing nothing?