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?

This thread is quite depressing. Makes me realise that our society has become pretty self-centred. Overall the majority of comments on here seem to be whether someone else is 'getting something for nothing' or 'I've paid £10 for my seat and I will sit in regardless' and 'your child, your problem'. It seems to be assuming that anyone who hasn't booked specific seat is trying get one up on everyone else. When did everyone get this callous?
Hardly any comments about the whole airline booking system, whether the airlines have the passenger's best interests at heart; or any thought about what is the best and safest way for a large group of people to travel in a metal tube through the sky at high speed. (is a small child sitting without a guardian really safe? Surely the airline have a responsibility to ensure everyone is seated in the safest way possible?)

No, it all boils down to who has best negotiated the complex air ticket booking system, and if you haven't paid your sodding £10 then you deserve what you get.

Lord I'd hate it if the plane crashed and I was stranded on a desert island with you lot! It all comes down to market forces I guess, which is the way we've been brought up to think about every aspect of our lives.

Some really, really nasty people on this thread.

midnite would you really refuse to move seats, and then leave a child distressed and without any assistance for the sake of a few pounds? Regardless of whether the parents have paid, surely it isn't fair to punish the child? It would also be dangerous in the case of an emergency (not just to the child, but also to you, as a parent trying to find their child would slow an evacuation)

I thought all seats on an airplane were pretty similar, which is why I have never paid extra for seating. I have no idea why some people are so territorial about their seats.

Airlines should sit all groups who book together, together where possible, and always children.

Are people too pig-headed to see this issue as the fault of the airlines?

I agree playdough I think in defence of the human race you start to notice on aibu a hardcore of 'mnetters' who actually hate children and families. So I'm not sure it's representative.

In RL it isn't the problem it is made out on MN! Things generally aren't.

don't I second what you have said completely.

It is a very sad reflection of society that people are so selfish.

but if you haven't got that amount of money what happens if you have an emergency? By the way I have sat next to a 3 year old who was separated and Qatar Airways are vile and wouldn't even try to move her. What am I going to do, ignore her? We had a nice time although she did puke on me. Kids on planes are a fact of life. who the hell hates kids? I don't but if I can afford to, I choose business now to avoid them but not because I hate them. And I so admire their intolerance to discomfort, boring trips and hunger. I completely agree!

I don't hate children or families,but no I am not going to pay 'a few pounds' or £25 or whatever it is for someone else's benefit. And I'm certainly not willing to cause by giving up a seat that I've chosen specifically to try to minimise the impact of my sensory issues,mental health issues and flying phobia.

In the event of a medical emergency I'd give up my seat,otherwise no. It's not my job to prioritise someone's child over my needs when the parents have the same option I take of paying for allocated seats.

It's not just the budget airlines that charge. BA want £20 from each of us to reserve our seats. Their website says they'll make sure a child is always with an adult - but no-one in BA appears to know what "with" means. Does it mean next to or across an aisle (OK) or does it mean in front/behind (not OK). I've emailed and phoned them to ask, and all they can do is quote back the sentence I've already read on the website.

So do I take the risk or not? Either way, it's a fucking disgrace that they make ANYONE, family or not, pay extra to prebook seats.

After all, if I buy theatre tickets, or even cinema tickets, I don't have to pay extra to guarantee we're all sitting together as a family.

hibbleedibble I choose my seat for a reason as I need to be able to get up and move around, so always have an aisle seat. And if I'm not travelling with DS then I pay for a bulkhead/exit row. A parent wanting me to move to a middle seat would not get a positive response. If they were polite, the seat was a similiar type to the one I had prebooked for, then I'd move. But attitude would actually have a lot to do with it for me.

I would help a child in an emergency, just like I would any other person sitting in the seat next to me. But that doesn't extend to needing to amuse a child for the duration of a flight. If the child is too young to sit apart from their parents, then the parent should pay for it at time of booking.

Thanks all, I was feeling a little depressed reading this! Can we say this is an 'only on Mumsnet' issue?

Theatre and cinema tickets aren't priced in the same way. Plane tickets start mostly with a low base fare so that people can travel affordably without paying for extras if they wish. If they choose not to pay for guaranteed seats together they shouldn't expect others to move to accommodate that choice especially if others have chosen to pay extra to choose a seat.
No way am I going to be guilt tripped with cries of selfishness into feeling any different.
I agree that it might be viable for people to have to opt into the discount meaning you accept sitting anywhere but the airlines base fare simply wouldn't look as attractive.

I travel on the train with my DCs and to make sure I am sitting near to them I can reserve seats without paying extra, so why can't the airlines offer this service too? Because its another way to get more money out of passengers.

Re the 'flights are cheaper nowadays' - if you travel during school holidays, sorry no they are not that cheap. I agree they are a luxury, but I wouldn't say £1500 for my family to fly to Spain is cheap. Yes its my choice to go, but for that price I think you should be able to allocate an adult sitting next to a child. I cannot see any reason why they can't do this.

lol at guilt tripping. If you feel no guilt it really doesn't apply but if the cap fits.

The seats arent guaranteed anyway lets make sure that is clear.

And at last we have an example of it happening, I was thinking this is actually a completely hypothetical thread.

don't eat train reservations arent guaranteed either. I've booked a seat in a carriage that is either closed or doesn't exist several times.

I don't feel remotely guilty thanks.

Flights really aren't cheaper these days. I was looking at various permutations of trips over August bank holiday, late September when my son has an INSET day and October half term and have given up as even the "low cost" airlines are charging through the nose. It is partly the taxes and fuel surcharges that make it so expensive.

I really can't see how it is in the airlines' interest to have unhappy passengers simply to make a bob or two extra. For goodness sake, let people choose their seats when they book (whether they have kids or not) and be done with it. Just include it in the price.

Flights really aren't cheaper these days

Did you travel short-haul in the 1990s?

Short haul in the 90's was around £100 to Portugal and food included along with free sitting next to each other.

I don't pay the extra.
I would happily move so someone could sit with their child. I would expect someone to do the same for me. It's how I think society should work.
I haven't paid the extra for when I go on holiday. If the airline expect me to sit apart from my two year old the plane won't be able to take off as dd will be going apoplectic. She's clingy to the max.
I'm travelling with several other family members. I don't expect to sit with them.
If dd was a few months younger she'd be sat on my lap.

Short haul in the 90's was around £100 to Portugal and food included along with free sitting next to each other.

short haul is now cheaper. So, with inflation, in real terms it is hugely cheaper.

Short haul in the 90's was around £100 to Portugal...free sitting next to each other.

Luton to Lisbon, return, in October is about sixty quid return on Easy. Inflation has hardly been zero since the 1990s, either. It was never cheap to travel in the school holidays at short notice, although unless someone happens to have a receipt to settle the argument we would need a time machine to find out the facts.

And short-haul rarely pre-allocated, it was almost always seats at checkin. The problem now is that airlines have started making money selling pre-allocation (my memory of having pre-allocated long haul seats in the 90s was that you only got it as a privilege of flying on full-price tickets) so a lot of the seats have been pre-allocated, leaving people who are getting seats on checkin to slot in amongst the spaces. In 3+4+3 widebodies that's not a problem, but on a 2+2 or 3+3 short haul it is harder.

In the end the market decides, and given the ferocious yield management that Easy et al do on their pricing, I can't imagine that they haven't market-tested whether "cheap base plus extras" or "all in" works better for them.

If the airline expect me to sit apart from my two year old the plane won't be able to take off as dd will be going apoplectic.

They could, of course, just put the pair of you off.

"You need to do this as otherwise my child will be screaming" isn't a strong bargaining position.

In reality, no airline is going to seat a 2 year old away from an adult, as it would be wildly unsafe, so speculating about what might happen if they did is rather pointless (cue accounts of how someone's cousin's aunt had it happen to them). Aside from anything else, a 2 year old cannot fasten and unfasten their own seatbelt or fit a mask, never mind evacuate. And as scrum boarding has pretty much gone, you wouldn't get to the plane and find this out anyway; the latest it would be sorted out would be at the gate.

(It would be interesting to cross-reference airlines' rules on unaccompanied minors with their seating policy: it seems hard to see how they can insist on "no unaccompanied children under X years" if the accompanying adult can be seated at the other end of the cabin).

What they might do, however, is seat two parents and two children in two blocks of two, or put a ten year old on their own, or separate a honeymoon couple, or do other things that are a pain, but aren't dangerous. That's what you're paying for, if you don't want that to happen, or money you can save, if you don't mind.

you are BA are very good and always seat families together. In my experience that has always been next to each other, there is no need to pay extra.

Even when I made separate bookings for me and dd (long story) I just called them up and they linked the bookings so we were sat next to each other.

midnite do you not understand that even if you tried to help a child who you insisted on separating from his or her parents in an emergency, he or she may not be willing to accept your help in that situation, and likely their parents will be panicking trying to find them, impeding everyone's exit from the plane? It is a matter of safety, as well as common decency.

Yep - I'd rather just look on it as a discount if you don't care.

I care where I sit - the only time I didn't I was put at the back of a bloody big plane, next to the toilet, in a seat that did not recline (a WHOLE other argument) for 11 hours and it took nearly 2 hours to get through immigration at the other end behind almost every single person on the plane. SOMEONE has to be in that position - I am happy to pay not to be that person.

Nobody asked me to move...

Taking something off a person that they have paid for because you didn't want to pay for it yourself would, in most cases, be classed as theft. I don't see any difference if the item paid for is a plane seat.

Having paid for a specific seat does not absolve an individual of their responsibilities to other human beings but neither does travelling with children make theft acceptable.

One airline seat is not just like another. An adult passenger may need to be in an aisle/window seat, next to another member of their party, near the loo etc for medical/mobility reasons or anxiety. An individual with autism may not cope well with being moved even if the alternative seat would have been just as good had they been allocated it in the first place - I once went into a very anxious state a couple of minutes after being moved to a different table in a hotel because someone had decided to sit at our allocated one even though there was nothing wrong with the alternative. Luckily DH was with me and I was able to get away to a quiet place but had this been an aircraft I could have had a full blown meltdown during take off.

I'm sure there are other ways round the problem e.g. airlines guarantee to seat parties up to a certain size together (problem being they then put up the ticket price to recoup the lost revenue from seat bookings) some seats made pre-bookable in blocks of 2,3,4 and only released individually shortly before check in closes or for passengers to pay a smaller charge to sit together but not in specific seats as this would allow the airline to allocate them in a way which did not leave single ones.