Online Check In - seats together with children

[madmare77]

I'm going on holiday next week. Thomson package holiday with DH, DS (12) and DD (9). Online check in opened today. Logged on at 6.30am and could not check in. I left it until after 9am and still not able to check in.
I called Thompson to query and was told they only allow 70% on people to check in online (God knows what time they got up to do this!).
I told the lady I was concerned as I had children (especially my 9 year old) could I pay to pre book seats and was told no. I'm concerned as it's a 4.5 hour flight and I don't want my kids sat next to any Tom, Dick or Harry.
Are there any airline industry people who can tell me if they will try to seat us together or are we screwed?
Thanks

To clarify, OP I don't think anyone thinks you are BU at all. You were unlucky in this instance.

The issue is with people refusing to pre-book seats when they are aware that it is required (regardless of whether the airline is wrong or right) if you need to sit together because they don't want to pay the odd £8pp.

Well if you RTT

Some people believe that you pay extra to pick seats

Others see it as a discount if you don't

Francis you always verbalise perfectly what I in my wordy waffling am trying to say.

Well if you RTT

Some people believe that you pay extra to pick seats

Others see it as a discount if you don't

Ive read the full thread thank you and I will only say this - you are waffling and desperately trying to clutch at straws.

you are waffling and desperately trying to clutch at straws

Ok - but it's not me accusing parents of being either bad parents or uncaring parents for the sake of not buying into the added extras

Not pre booking is not an indicator of bad parenting - it's a sign or airlines ripping people off

So what's the answer then Astro?

People who pay naturally feel aggrieved at being turfed out their seats that they've paid for. And certain people won't pay! This is the way of the world at the moment. If you feel strongly about it, take it up with the airline but don't expect to sit in my paid for seat.

Madmare77

I am so sorry you are going through this - with Thomson AND this thread! It is an awful situation to be in and sadly because the airlines took advantage of anxious parents wanting to ensure their children are next to them on a flight, they saw fit to provide everyone with a 'pay up front' option to book seats - basically an extra buck or two for the airline! Parents and others KNOW that if they don't pre-book they would end up in the situation of being split up. Sadly for you, this could very well be the case.

This isn't YOUR fault for not pre-booking. Why should you? The airline know who is going when you book and therefore should automatically allocate seats when you do book. It is simply a money-spinning scheme!

We're flying with jet2 next week. It cost us £90 for us to allocate our seats and to ensure my 5 year old and 2 year old sit with us, their parents. I begrudge paying it, but I too would have been stressed if I hadn't and relied on the airline to sit us together. But in not doing so, disrupts everyone else! It is a catch 22 situation.

It also happened to DH and I when we travelled with United Airlines to Charlotte Airport in 2011. We were split, we asked to be allocated seats together (I am a nervous flyer and to be without my DH on a trans-atlantic flight freaked me out). The airline called us to the gate and issued us with new seats!

You never know! Someone WILL LIKELY take pity on you and ensure your 9 year old is sat together.

If airlines need to make an extra few quid then they should build the cost of pre-booking into the cost of the holiday and allocate seats at the time of booking.

But that would be too easy for them!

Banging - but not everyone wants pre-booked seats so why should we subsidise those who do?

It's like the pictures - every group leaves a space between them thinking they get extra space - but then find the picture is popular and they are asked to budge up - but they won't - so cinemas now have to allocate seating

Nothing like the pictures when I want to either sit next to someone or sit in an aisle seat at the back! I wish planes were as empty as some cinemas, I saw a film totally on my own in the cinema once, that would've been like my own private plane!

The problem in my view is that we have all allowed airlines to create a situation where you book a number of seats, but if you want to have the seats located together despite being bought together they look for more money.
It's obvious if I buy three seats together I want them to be located together. Just allocate them together. Why charge people extra to pick a seat? It will be done later free of charge anyway, just not in a logical way. It's not costing them anything to allocate seats. It's pure money grabbing on the part of airlines and it has become an accepted norm.
Seating family members apart is dangerous, in the event of a crash landing with smoke you have 90 seconds to get out of the plane before the smoke makes the atmosphere incompatible with breathing, so even if your injuries from the crash are survivable unless you get out quickly you will die. If people are trying to get back to help family, which is human instinct, it will mean other people will not get out alive.

It's obvious if I buy three seats together I want them to be located together.

Not necessarily. Many companies book for several employees to travel on business (not in business class) and have a policy of seating them away from each other. My employer has this policy, and I am VERY thankful for it!

I agree with 2 PPs who have pointed out that a computer should easily be able to handle the efficient allocation of seating to every party that books with a child under a certain age, so that each child gets sat next to an adult in said party. Put them in the least desirable seats ie at the back of plane (or middle) so that there will still be an incentive to pay for better ones, and manage the allocation efficiently so that there aren't too many single seats left over. It could even make a point of not sitting whole party together, ie two parents separated, one with each child, if it's so critical to generate more money from people willing to pay for a better deal.

If it gets to a stage where it's taking a booking from a party with children and it doesn't have any suitable seats together to allocate, it can give a warning at that stage.

But I do think that it is ridiculous for an airline to sanction a very young child sitting with strangers on the opposite side of the plane to its parent, in any circumstances. This should be circumvented at the booking stage. And I don't even have children myself.

Why do they seat them apart, choli?

theymademejoin - exactly right.

It costs the airlines time, money and effort to seat all groups together. A policy of always sitting groups together would guarantee empty seats and lost revenue. People who don't mind where they sit save the airline time, money and effort and rightly should get a discount.

People who DO mind where they sit but don't pay the extra are effectively lying during the booking process. They cost the airline even more time money and effort and don't pay for it so effectively the rest of us are subsidising their selfish behaviour.

Rather than making the seat-booking charge opt-in or opt-out there should be an explicit non-smallprint choice point where you either choose to pay or double-confirm that you have no interest in sitting anywhere near any other members of your group and will not make a murmur if you are at opposite ends of the plane. Neither option being the "default"

choli my employer does this too.

chardonnay I think it's done with a bit of a morbid thought - if the plane crashed then odds are if employees are sat separately there'd be more survivors.

Our directors, if more than 2 fly out on business trips they have to fly separately on different flights. Again limits loss in the event of an emergency. Morbid but I know a lot of businesses do this.

Oh OK, makes sense, sort of. my best guess was because companies didn't want employees discussing business matters in the plane where they could be overheard by someone.

peukpokicuzo - Brilliant suggestion. Airlines already use the no-default format to get around the legislation regarding opt-outs but I love the notion of the two options being:

I want to pay to secure the seat of my choice

I do not want to pay for a seat and promise not to whinge if I end up sitting apart from the people I am travelling with

Can't believe the amount of people who swallow that this is an optional fee. The same people spouting off about how people are bad parents if they dont pay the 'optional' fee. That makes it not optional. Airlines are cashing in on this and you lot are just lapping it up.

For the record I have paid for seats to be near my children. I think its a rip off to add £80 to a booking just so everyone ON THE SAME BOOKING can sit together.

I have also, when travelling with other adults, not choosen seats because, well we're adults, and its not the end of the world if we don't sit together for the 2 hour flight . So far 10 flights later we have never been sat apart.
However if travelling with adults I would be willing to move to allow a small child to sit with their parent, regardless of the reasons why the parent hadn't paid out to choose where they sat. The reason being, that child would need to sit with their mother way more than I would need to sit with my friend or relative. And because i'm not a dick.

It does not cost the airline money to allocate seats together for each booking. Its a money spinner.

However if travelling with adults I would be willing to move to allow a small child to sit with their parent, regardless of the reasons why the parent hadn't paid out to choose where they sat. The reason being, that child would need to sit with their mother way more than I would need to sit with my friend or relative. And because i'm not a dick.

Well, I guess the rest of us will have to live with the knowledge that you are clearly a far, far better human being that we could ever hope to be.

I just don't know how I'll cope.

Very few people actually have to fly anywhere with their children. Most of the time it is a deliberate choice to do so.

Yes, because getting a boat to the Canary Islands is another choice they could have made.