AIBU to expect to sit next to my child on a 10 hour flight

[soimpressed]

This year I have booked my first ever package holiday. I booked with what I thought was a good company and the holiday cost a lot of money. I was told I could check in 7 days before the flight and tried to do so but the system wouldn't let me check in. I tried several times with no success. It took 3 emails before the company finally sorted the problem out. When I finally got to check in online I found that I wasn't sitting next to my child. Everyone else has obviously been able to check in and there are no seats left together. My only option is to pay £150 each seat to upgrade. My DS is in tears about having to sit next to strangers. The company are refusing point blank to help. AIBU or do I just need to shell out the £300?

I would move for any child if I was travelling alone, no matter what the parent was like.

Because a parent sitting with a child is about the child, not the parent.

"thinks it's acceptable to actively encourage childrento be disruptive in order to force single passengers to move from seats they may have paid to prebook."

If they have paid to prebook those seats, I have a feeling that they will tell the stewardesses to move the child somewhere else rather than move themselves.

In such cases of shared misery across multiple customers, stewardesses are quite motivated to find a solution to the problem of seating a child with his parent - the motivation that is somehow lacking if the child is sitting their crying and upset in silence, for example.

My last post is crossposted with tethersend's response to me, but I think it answers it too.

I'm surprised that anyone thinks it is ok for children to sit apart from their parents unless their parents pay extra, let alone a travel agent who presumably ensures that all their staff who work with children are police checked.

Quite right - which is why parents should either pay up or wait till their DC are older to fly. I realise that travel plans do have to sometimes be re-arranged at the last minute but that is the exception not the norm.

Parents are responsible for their children and for ensuring that they are able to supervise them. A stranger who planned ahead and booked their seats is not.

Juliet- how horrible for you and your son. Hope he has had a nice experience on flights since.

But arguing with each other about lifestyle choices and badly behaved children I'd futile.
The fact is that when you book for five people some children included then you should just be allocated 5 seats together like any other group booking.
The airlines are just making a bloody killing charging extra for what they should already be doing.
The argument is with them not each other.

If I were on my own I would move for a parent and child, as long as I had the same or 'better' seat to move to (ie not from an aisle seat to a middle seat).

If I was flying with DH and DD then I will have pre-booked and paid for selected seats, so I wouldn't move, and DH wouldn't move either. The planes we travel on tend to be in rows of 3 in any case, so it's unlikely to ever be an issue.

If we were 3 passengers in a row of 4 then we will accept that someone else has to sit with us, be that a child or adult. If that child was OK, then it wouldn't be an issue and I'm sure they would end up chatting with DD. If the child was a nightmare they'd be pointed in the direction of their parent as soon as the seatbelt sign went off.

I would be very unimpressed if someone tried to give us grief to make us move, or told their kids to misbehave, or tantrum to get their own way, and that would probably make me stick my heels in further. Passive aggressive comments, sneers or handing of sick bags would probably make me point out that the child would be the last person wearing an oxygen mask if it came down to it - and I hoped the parent would understand

"in an ideal world, that is how it would be - but we have to operate in the world we have - and in that world, the airlines have decided to charge extra to pre-allocate seating"

Not ideal world, the real world where carers always sit with the person they are in charge of caring for. We wouldn't be even discussing this if it were a patient in need of his nurse on a 10-hour flight - no airline would seat them apart. Somehow you consider this to be OK when it is a child who needs assistance throughout the flight.

In any case, my offer to seat DC next to you on our flight to New York this summer still stands. Please consider it. They love talking to strangers about everything for hours on end and have recently started going on long monologues about Wii games "Mario" and "Rayman Legends". Oh you will love them.

"The fact is that when you book for five people some children included then you should just be allocated 5 seats together like any other group booking.
The airlines are just making a bloody killing charging extra for what they should already be doing."

Exactly.

Doesn't anyone here remember a time when you would always sit with the people you booked with? You would maybe sit all the way in the back, but you would sit together.

It is a scam to charge you more, that is all it is.

If your DS has sen the airline I worked for would have sat you together free of charge on confirmed seats. I can't imagine any single person(who can be refunded) or any airline staff want your boy to be distressed. I'm sure they will sort it on the day.

"Do remember that having children is a lifestyle choice - if you don't want to pay to sit next to them then either don't have them or don't take them on a plane!"

Hmm, but being a child isn't a 'lifestyle choice', and they are the ones who are vulnerable.

Let's post this argument next time the topic of "buggies must be folded if a wheelchair user wishes to get on a bus" comes up and see what reaction it gets. It's amazing how MNers seem to react differently when it's a hidden disability and an aircraft.

And you allow them to disturb strangers like that Cote?

Still I suppose children are unlikely to learn social boundaries if no one teaches them.

If I ended up sitting next to a child who was behaving nicely, I would interact with them a bit, and help open the odd sweetie bag or whatever

What about the constant requests/questions?

"I need the loo"
"can I have a drink"
"can have x,y,z from my bag (in overhead)'
"I need a wipe for sticky fingers"
"Can I look out of the window"
"I feel sick"
"cab I have a drink"
"I need a wee"

Not a strangers job to sort all that, and I know that many strangers would not be happy to help to such a degree. But who is going to do it if my kids are not sat by me? It is MY job.

Sorry (well I'm not) but I am not going to pay extra to ensure you don't have to be subjected to that, when it is the airline's responsibility to ensure my CHILD'S right to sit next to me is upheld.

Thomson are not shit, and certainly are more expensive than some operators. Although cheaper than luxury brands, clearly.

I have always thought that choosing your seats on the plane should be part of the booking process - that way, everyone gets to choose & if there are no seats suitable for your party you pick a different flight.

I wouldn't even hear the constant requests and questions with any luck. I'd have my earphones in as soon as I knew I had an unaccompanied child next to me. No way would I interact with the child of a parent who'd not prebooked.

ProudAS, please don't use my argument on one topic and pick it apart for not holding water on another, completely unrelated topic.

That's just odd.

Young children on their own are vulnerable. Whether they are quiet, loud, chatty, quiet, have SEN or not. They are vulnerable.

I cannot contemplate thinking that a scared and crying five, six, or nine year old should suck it up because their parents would not or could not pay extra money.

ALL passengers should complain to the airlines about this policy.

and it isnt about disturbing anyone or allowing it, because i dont allow that at all. But i wont be blackmailed into shelling out extra for a seat i have already paid for.

ilove, nice attitude. take it out on the child.

What about the constant requests/questions?

As long as the seatbelt sign is off: "Go and ask your mum"
Easy.

I agree that it is the airlines responsibility - but if they aren't going to do it (and you will know that before you fly) then surely it's up to you to do something about it? Why would you WANT to spoil your child's holiday / A N Other passengers holiday because you don't agree with what the airline is doing? It's not your childs fault, and neither is it the other passengers fault - so why punish them?

"No way would I interact with the child of a parent who'd not prebooked."

Really? Even if the child was crying with fear? You'd not comfort them because their parent had not prebooked?

Christ.

lleve, no one said families should be seperated, thats the whole bloody point!!

This is such bollocks. They should be able to accommodate one person sitting next to another. It's just money-grubbing twattery. We have checked in that morning as a group of eight on a school holiday flight with BA and Monarch, three children in the group and every child has had at least one adult sitting with them an no-one in the group sat on their own.

Do you go round assuming you are entitled to other stuff you haven't paid for, differentnameforthis? If you have paid for a child's meal for your child, and someone at another table has something different, better, because they have paid extra to order from the adult menu, would you insist they gave up that food to your child, because it is your child's 'right' to have it?

And like I said, I will interact a bit with a child who is behaving reasonably well - but there will come a point where I will stop, and will just tell them to go ask their mother. But if that upsets them, that won't be my fault, and it won't be the airline's fault, it will be yours, because you KNEW the risks when you chose not to pay extra to prebook seats. That is real life.

Sorry, I'd exclude fear and distress - I meant ordinary interaction. However children in distress want their mum, who should pay to prebook in order to guarantee the seat which addresses her child's needs.