The Civil Aviation Authority is examining if companies deliberately split up groups so they have to pay to sit together

[RhiWrites]

www.theguardian.com/money/2018/feb/27/ryanair-pay-seat-allocation-families-split?

As a keen reader of the kids on airplanes thread we get here, I thought Mumsnetters might be interested to know companies may be deliberately splitting up families to make money from them.

If it does turn out this was deliberate maybe you can claim back the costs of having to pay for families to be seated together.

I'm absolutely sure certain airlines do this. (Ryanair, Jet2 Tui, I'm looking at you) Once you have checked in, assuming you haven't paid to prebook, you'll more often than not, be seated apart. As soon as you agree to pay, lots of seats together all appear.

I've found EasyJet and Thomas Cook to be far better and have yet to be split up from my party when I travel with them. I do always do online check in the moment it opens though.

Dd went away with 20 of her uni mates and everyone single one had a middle seat. Can't tell me that's random. Plenty of empty seats next to them when they boarded as well.

The CAA should consider the masses of data available from the acres of heated debate on this matter on MN. There must be a billion threads about it.

Ryanair totally do this.

On way back from Tenerife last year me, dh and dd all separated as I wouldn’t pay. Fair enough, I can cope with this. Dd is old enough. But what annoys me is the woman I was sat next to, dd was sat next to her dh further back. Obviously we swapped. As did about 50% of the plane as they all were in similar situations. Was like musical chairs and the air steward was going bonkers saying people had to stay in their allocated seat in case of a crash for identification purposes. #cheerful.

Stay in their seat for identification purposes?! I don't think air disasters are that tidy!

My thoughts exactly. And hardly something to say in front of kids and nervous flyers!

Excellent!

If the plane crashes, your seat will have an identifier (54B etc).

This will help them identify who is who.

I'd be the annoying passenger helpfully tweeting a new seating list so they could refer to that if we crashed. 'Hashtag what a load of shite these airlines are'

Paradise

Tui is done by computer back left inwards - so even if there are two together elsewhere on the plane it’ll fill the first two from back left first even if they’re apart. So not technically deliberately seperating but certainly not trying to seat together either. Tui & Ryanair are the worst - Jet2 and TC both try to put bookings together if they can but isn’t always possible if lots have pre booked.

If the plane crashes, your seat will have an identifier (54B etc).
This will help them identify who is who.

if the flight is intact when it crashes...

Should be a short investigation. Should just be a sheet of A4, with "Obviously" written on it under the conculsion section.

I did offer to write my name on my forehead!

But I may no longer be in that seat if the planet crashes...

I was actually told to move seats if I wanted to when we came back from Florida last year. I’ve also sat in DHs seat as he was allocated the window seat and doesn’t like them so I swapped with him.

If the planet crashes we’re all in big trouble. Seating charts won’t help.

Oops! I definitely won’t be in that seat if the planet crashes!

The whole thing is messed up. I flew 5 times with Ryanair last year, on my own and did not pay to select a seat and 5 times I was 'randomly allocated' a middle seat.

Not too sure how they manage the whole thing at all though. I tried to rebook our tickets with easyjet today, we had paid to select seats but there were no four and even no two and two seats together in the plane even though there were about 15 seats still free. We couldn't take the risk travelling with à 3yo and a 6yo.

We are doing a rather convoluted multi destination journey this summer, taking In Kefalonia, Athens, Istanbul and Izmir. Only on the internal flight from Istanbul to Izmir is there no option to pre-book seats, but I have been conditioned to live in fear of being separated from small children on a flight. Flying home from Turkey added a huge amount of expense to the overall flight costs, just to ensure we can sit in a 3 + 2 configuration. While I think the 7yr old would be fine sat on his own in an aisle seat (a window or middle seat next to strangers would leave him feeling scared and trapped), that would only work if myself or DH were either next to him across the aisle or in front/behind him. As for the two 5yr olds....
DH said we should just ignore it and let the airline allocate at check in. He, as a parent, would more than happily give up his seat to let a family sit together. I said yes, but there are plenty of people who won’t, especially if they themselves have paid to pre book a specific seat. I’m with him on this; I would much rather give up a seat than look after someone else’s child on a flight. Bad enough looking after my own.

Travelling with Ryanair last summer, we thought happy days when told that families with children are allocated free seats. Then of course their algorithm allocated those seats as far away from each other as possible. Of course you can change them, but in order to do so and choose seats together or even nearby (I sat with the boys while DH had to sit with DD a few rows apart), Ryanair had us over a barrel and ensured we paid.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s lovely that we can pre book seats and Travel feeling assured that we can sit where we would like to sit. Much better than a free for all. But would it seriously hurt the airlines to have a policy stating that where a booking includes children under a certain age, say 12, that they will be allocated seating grouped together without additional charge? Then people who want to pre book can, and people who are happy to take pot luck also can.