to not want to pay £100 to guarantee that our kids can sit next to us on the plane

[mumsnit]

DH wants us to pay £25 each to guarantee that we can all get seats together when we go on holiday next month. Aibu to think it's a ridiculous cost to pay out

But I have heard that one airline refused to seat a family together as they hadn't paid the premium and tried to seat a 3 year old alone on the other side of the plane from the parents. We don't go on holiday very often - especially abroad and I'm already nervous about flying so don't want this added to the stress of travelling.

WWYD/WDYD - do you pay the extra cost?

I pay an extra grand to sit away from parents like you. if you want the seat, pay for it Ffs.

Good grief - there is some astonishing rudeness on here!

My son is disabled - his disability is not shameful. Disability is not shameful. Can we stop with the 'disabled' nonsense.

Dallas is not a handout. It is a shit of a thing to complete but I do it because it's not mine - it's my sons. It's money to give him access to the experiences his siblings can get without extra help. That can include paying for a window seat so he can fly with a much lower level of anxiety.

Many people believe adhd and autism are made up. I explain face to face if I must but I'm not phoning some cocking help line and jump through hoops to explain his difficulties. I'd rather just pay.

I have no idea why all elderflowers posts are being twisted. It's quite bizarre.

I'd be really interested to know what percentage of passengers actually pay for a seat assignment.

We are a family of four and have never paid and never had a problem. We are happy to sit 2 here and 2 there. We mostly fly long haul and expect that we won't be by a window etc. Generally they have us near a toilet/galley. I assume very few people want an inside seat near the back of the plane. It's not much of a bun fight to have a couple of those together on a long haul, wide bodied plane.

I don't know why I have just remembered this but dS1 once sat quite far away from us and pulled out his English and Latin books to revise for his AS levels.
The woman sitting next to him gleefully fessed up to being an ex- head of English dept and tested him all the way to our destination.

His face !

So relieved I didn't offend you by lacking empathy or whatever was said Pagwatch!

I do think DLA is always worth claiming because even if you don't need it now your child might in the future - my brother never really ended up independent. Sorry, diverting the thread again.

Haha that's brilliant!

I love kindles and tablets but I always used to nose at what people were reading on the train when I was at university.

Are 2 year olds ever actually sat on their own? Thinking back to when I had a two year old there is absolutely no way she would have stayed sat in a seat away from me - I could barely keep her in the seat next to me as she wanted to be on my lap and adult seat belts don't keep 2-year olds in place. There would be a very high chance of a loose toddler trotting up or down the plane during take-off or landing.

We pay for two guaranteed seats for the four year old to sit next to dad, baby on my lap anyway, and teen would prefer to be anywhere but with us. So 2/4 seats guaranteed.

I really like MaryFairy's suggestion:
Why don't parents who don't want to pay in advance take along in cash the allocation fee to offer if no one is willing to swap seats?

I get that people don't feel that they should pay to sit together and by not paying their are exerting their basic human right and should still get to sit beside their DCs. I get that they don't want to line the airline's pockets with something they feel they should have for free ( despite reduced airline profit margins and flight costs).

However the bit I don't get is expecting someone to move for you, who may well have paid for their seat, and then being arsey when they choose not to. In those circumstances you are disrupting someone who has their own reasons for sitting where they are - if they've paid for the privilege then it's only fair that you reimburse them then take that up with the airline rather than forcing them to.

Honestly before these threads I would happily move if I were on my own or with DH, or even if it was the three of us (even if we had paid for seats which we always do) provided DH was still beside DS. Now I'm not so sure. A lot of those people who don't pay seem very smug and militant and whilst it's no hardship for me to not sit beside DH for a couple of hours or put myself in the middle or window seat which I don't like, then at the very least I'd expect a smile of recognition and a heartfelt thanks as I'm not the greedy airline empire, I'm a human that is being displaced because someone else has decided to save money.

I think the issue with that is that it assumes that it is only money rather than any other reason that someone might have for not wanting to move.

If someone said to me 'look, there's your £30 - now shift' I'd be enraged!

We're flying with Ryanair a week on Sunday.

I think I paid £10.98 per seat per flight to ensure myself and DD were sitting next to each other It hurt my teeth to do it considering the ridiculous amount I shelled out checking each of us in 1 hold bag, but 8yo DD suffers from quite severe anxiety issues at times and there is no way I would risk stressing her out on a flight for several hours when it could have been avoided. I'm not sure how well she would have coped not being seated next to me, which would only cause upset for her, me and the passengers sitting next to her. It wouldn't have been fair. Not to mention it putting a real downer on the start of a holiday we've both been looking forward to since January. I knew the flight was fully booked both ways and a lot of people have already booked their seats, so I'm feeling a bit more relaxed about going now that I know we'll be sitting together.

Would I move for another parent? Not if I was travelling alone with my DD, no. If I had someone else travelling with us, then yes. I think I'd be silently pissed off at the money I'd just wasted picking my seat though, but still preferable to having to entertain someone else's child for hours

rookiemere agree with your whole post - you've worded what I'd have liked to have said. but I also get elderflowers's point that money not the only reason people wouldn't want to move.

Surely airlines have a general duty of care for all passengers and would be breaching that duty if they place children under a certain age or with disabilities on their own? Equally, for them to have to pay to have a carer sit beside them would be discriminatory as other passengers do not have to pay this fee to be safe to fly?

Elderflower - I think anyone polite enough to have thought through the financial implications would be politer than that , in any case even if they weren't it would still be better than "Shift yourself, I've got kids - I know my rights. You say you've paid do you, well take it up with the airline, frankly I don't care - I know my rights and if you don't do it I'll tell everyone on mumsnet how grumpy and old you are."

I'd hope so but then having read this thread I am not so sure!

I would have moved until I read MN on the subject and the way some people think they have the right not to pay the extra and yet be guaranteed to sit together- now I shall stay put unless the family offer to reimburse me the money that I paid to choose my seat in advance.

Vinotime - I hope you have a good flight.

I agree that Ryanair is particularly provoking the way they price everything up separately including that terribly annoying £5.00 non avoidable admin fee - if it's non avoidable why not include the flippin thing in your base price. However I think what you need to look at is the overall flight price and forget about how it's made up.

I may well end up using Ryanair business class (strange concept) to avoid going through the millions of pages of upsell in future.

It's all for a low headline rate.

When I was booking my flights for the summer EasyJet came up as much cheaper than BA but when I factored in the cost of checking in the baggage etc then BA was the same price but all the extras with EasyJet were included.

I did say that it would be an idea to offer the cash , in no way would it be an order to move that has to be obeyed.

I get that many people have reasons other than money for keeping their seat, but there will also be people who might be ok with swapping had they not shelled out the fee.

30 is a lot to just give away to strangers. Also, if only one seat swap is needed, then only one fee would be payable, not a few per passenger.

Not a fee per passenger...

Ok I'll admit I don't fly short haul much and am not familiar with Ryan Air/EasyJet, my experience lately is mostly transatlantic. It's never been a problem to sit together without paying. I've moved for other people without resentment when I've been on my own.
I do understand that some one who has paid for their seat wouldn't want to move and would naturally feel put out. However I still see a big difference between wanting a specific seat and paying for it vs. just wanting any two seats together whereever they might be on the plane.

I understand why a disabled person should sit with their carer and not have to pay for the right. Why should infant children be any different?

I think it's the airline's responsibility to sort this out when first organising the seating, rather than leaving it to flight attendants to sort out at the last minute by guilting people into giving up their seats.

I went with a dodgy turkish airline last summer. Massive check in queue. I was on my own with 4 young kids. It was their first time flying too and I was desperately worried that we would be separated. The older younger ones could sit together but the 7 and 8 year old needed to be with me. Luckily the airline were great at sitting us together. This year I am flying with easy jet and paid the extra £5 each for booking seats.

I always, always pre book our seats. I am a very nervous flyer and the last thing I want when arriving at the airport is faffing about where we are sitting and worrying about getting split up.

I can be nervous with my family and they can keep me calm. It's got nothing at all to do with the money and everything to do with me not freaking out and being in control as much as I can.

I would be horrified to be asked to move and I don't think I would be able to. It takes me months to psyc myself up for a flight

when I factored in the cost of checking in the baggage etc then BA was the same price

Depending on whether you regard FlyBe as a LoCo or as a cheap legacy carrier, I've rarely found a LoCo any cheaper, especially when booking in advance. I've been flying to Germany on my own dollar recently, and Lufthansa is almost always cheaper, especially when you factor in that they fly to proper airports with an S-Bahn stop, while the LoCos usually fly to an ex-USAF dispersal base in the middle of nowhere requiring a two hour journey to the nominal destination. I'm not exaggerating: Frankfurt Hahn, where Ryan operate to, is 75 miles from Frankfurt, 10 miles from the nearest railway station and that on a minor branch line, and is only really accessible by hire care and coach. It's end to end costs that matter, including transfers at each end and all the extra costs.

weebirdie in an emergency I would imagine I'd be less of a problem than the pissheads, hysterics and unfortunate people with mobility problems. Valium spaces me out a bit, it doesn't make me incapable.