Airline just taking the piss now

[juststuckinthemiddlewithyou]

Have flights booked with a well know budget airline. Lets call them RA.

There are 2 of us going and although we would like to sit together , if when we came to check in there were no seats together it isn't the end of the world. Don't worry we won't be asking for anyone to move for us!

However, went to check in today and there is a diagram showing us all the availble seats we can choose from, along with varying prices. or we can go for the free check in. Now i'd say about 75% of the aircraft is available at this point so there was a lovely selection of seats available. But we didn't really want to fork out another £14 (each way) and are not particulary bothered where in the plane we sit so just checked in using the free option.

So RA allocated us 2 seats. 10 rows apart! BOTH seats are in the MIDDLE of a row of 3, with 2 EMPTY seats either side of them.

It just feels like they are taking the piss really. Its no longer a case of if you want to guantee you sit together you should pre-book your seats early. It is now a case of if you don't pay for seats you will definately be seperated.

Now, if there were hardly any seats left at check in and none together I wouldn't think anything of it, but there were LOADS of them and they deliberately sat us miles apart. I've now paid to move one of the seats to an empty one next to the other.

AIBU to think that if you check in and there are seats available together they should be allocated together as opposed to definately not allocated together? In the past we have always been lucky and sat together, so this is obviously a new thing they are doing to now to force people to pay extra for seats even when there are loads of available seats TOGETHER.

I have just learned a life lesson - been on a package holiday with Thomson we only booked just less than a week before as we needed to be sure we could go. 4 of us - teen with anxiety, 10 yo and DP with long legs....not wanting any stress I ticked the choose seats option -cost iirc nearly £70. Check in has been open for a while - when I went to check in I found that there was really limited choice of seats to choose -flight was nearly full. I did get seats together -row of 3 and an aisle seat for DP in front -but on both flights they would have stuggled to have split us up. Next time I am not paying to choose seats until I have seen what seats we would have been allocated anyway -what was available - and I also wondered if they would have still given the option to pay to choose seats if there were no seats together left to choose...
Also there was a couple who had been split up - the woman was in the aisle seat across from our row. The man kept coming and standing next to her for a chat - everytime someone wanted to get passed/go to the loo he stood in on her side but we had to lean in too or get bashed... I was starting to get pissed off by it and wished the stewards would tell him to sit down. And they must have been allocated seats before I checked in cos her seat wasn't shown as avaiable or DP would have sat there...

I think this is the best of a bad lot of options.

Airlines don't actually make much money on 'budget' flights, it's all the annoying optional fees like this that allow them to sell cheap tickets. If they made seat selection free, the ticket prices would go up accordingly, which would suck for the many people who couldn't care less where they sit or who with.

I travel a lot, and the amount of people who kick off and get incredibly rude and borderline abusive because they didn't book seats and falsely assumed they could get some together...it's just appalling. This system makes it extremely clear that you will HAVE to pay the fee if sitting with your travel companions matters to you, there's no longer any excuse for showing up and feigning surprised outrage that you're not getting a service you didn't pay for. Once the initial reaction dies down it should help stop a lot of the drama and delays people cause.

I just checked in 6 seats with easy jet and they put us all in a row. Including window and aisle seats.

Its poor customer service to not do so.

sofabitch,

I wonder if EZ flight prices include seats, even quietly without telling you!

Best way to go IMO. Provided you didn't pay extra for them in the first place on booking!

Easyjet prices do not include chosen seats. They include A seat of course.