Pre booked flight seats for 2 & 3 y/o's?

[doghelp123]

Not really AIBU, posting for traffic. Apologies for long post.

We are due to go on holiday in 7 weeks time and we have not paid for pre booked seats, the reason i have not paid is because our DCs are 2 & 3 y/o and the travel agent has advised its a £25 fee per seat, so looking at £100 all in for me, DH and DC's to be together - we have saved a long time to get this holiday and if I'm being honest it seems like a very large amount to be shelling out for seats. Me and DH are not fussed about being seated together obviously, but we would need the DCs to be next to either one of us so we did ask the travel agent if me and DH booked our two seats for the £50 would kids be guaranteed to be next to us but we were told me would need to pay the £25 for each of them as well, I then called jet 2 and they have advised that they would not split young children up from parents even if we had not paid for the seats but I have now been seeing things online stating that the DCs wouldn't necessarily be in the same row as either of us, but they could be put in the row in front or behind.

Can anyone who has flew before with Jet2 advise us? I would really rather not be paying the £100 for seats as IMO it is to much and it seems silly to be paying the money for kids that age if the airlines aren't actually allowed to split us?

So any frequent jet2 flyers, it would be much appreciated if anyone in similar circumstances could advise

Why do so many people post this same question?

The answer is yes. If you want to be guaranteed seats together you need to book seats together.

It wouldn't be fair to ask someone else to move for your kids if they'd already paid specifically for that seat. You need to pay it if you want to sit next to your kids.

Mine are teens but I always prebook seats. I am not moving for people who didn't bother.

How long is the flight? And how big are the kids? If the £100 is really important and you did find you weren't sat together would they manage on your knee?

Why do these split families up though? I remember back in the day you'd book your tickets and you'd all be sat together. What changed ?
Cheap flights and paying for what you need. Personally I havent got a problem with it.
Normally travel by myself with a small bag and pay base rates.
However if I go with a nervous flyer or a younger member of the family I pay for what we need, a seat together.

OP said the kids are 2 and 3. I’ve travelled with mine at this age and they aren’t allowed to sit on your knee during take off and landing, which are the scary parts.

I wouldn’t be impressed at sitting next to someone else’s 2 year old when their parent is the row infront or behind!

Pay to book seats, don’t take the risk.

Isn’t it a bit of a child protection issue? Seating 2 year olds with strangers? Also what about when parents are meant to tend to small children in the event of an accident?

I would love for my 2 year old to be someone else's problem for a flight 😂

In all seriousness though you do need to book!

It's not a child protection issue when you a 're sat in front/behind. Would be a different matter if it was out of sight

I always pre book seats and my children are all grown up and left home. I just know exactly where I want to sit

We visit family abroad twice a year and use whatever airline has the cheapest prices. We have flown jet2 a few times. We never pre book seats as that defeats the purpose of the cheap flights. We have always been put together (family of 4 so usually given 3 beside each other and 1 on same row but across aisle.) The key is to online check in as soon as possible. They are only likely to seperate you if they are running out of seats. Its a risk you take but for us its always worked out.

We don't pre book seats, luckily it's never been a problem for us. We had a family holiday with 15 of us so the extra cost would have been massive. The airline (Thomas Cook) made sure the youngest children were sat with an adult. They did mess up my disabled family members seat and sat her where disabled people can't sit but we just swapped around and DH was sat next to a massive man who overspilled his seat into DHs but that's another thread! When you are only flying a couple of hours it's not too bad to be split up (we were all mainly within 10 rows so not far from each other).

I had something similar to this with Jet2 recently - couldn't prebook seats together because the plane was full, the only ones available were across aisles. I spoke to them in advance, they told me that by law they couldn't let a child under 5 sit alone so would sort it out at check in. Obviously I wasn't worried about DH and I sitting together but needed one of us to sit with DD(3), when we checked in it wasn't a problem.

That said we literally couldn't book seats together so it was out of our hands

Arguably child protection would come in if you cannot attend to an oxygen mask for a child in the event of an emergency and would be relying on the kindness of strangers in an urgent situation. The child would be at risk.

It's not really in the interest of the airline to sit young children away from their parents - upset children, parents having to get up to check on their kids, safety, disgruntled passengers sitting next to unaccompanied kids etc. Yes, if absolutely everyone else has prebooked then they might have no choice, but I imagine they would do whatever they could to seat at least one adult with at least one child. It's better for the airline as well as the parent.

But yes, technically if you want to guarantee then you need to pre book.

Pay for the seats.

You really want to risk ruining your holiday for £100?

Arguably child protection would come in if you cannot attend to an oxygen mask for a child in the event of an emergency and would be relying on the kindness of strangers in an urgent situation. The child would be at risk.

That's daft, anyone sitting next to a child when the oxygen masks come down is not going to ignore the child, it might be difficult if the child is upset, but it's not a safety (from strangers) risk

And yes, airlines may well do their best to seat you together anyway, but if every family with small children relies on this, that's not always going to be possible, is it?

Phoned jet2 last year as when I tried to pay online to book our seats next to DC it was random single seats. All of a sudden free seats next to each other were bookable. Worth a call.

I believe EU airlines are not allowed to seat under 10s separate from their parent/ guardian. They may split you and your partner up, but they must facilitate your children sitting next to you.

Arguably child protection would come in if you cannot attend to an oxygen mask for a child in the event of an emergency and would be relying on the kindness of strangers in an urgent situation. The child would be at risk.

The rules are very clear about where children can sit. There is no allowance for Mumsnetters to 'argue'. It doesn't matter what you think could be a problem, the CAA have already decided what can happen.

Here you go:

Families, children and infants
The seating of children close by their parents or guardians should be the aim of airline seat allocation procedures for family groups and large parties of children.

Young children and infants who are accompanied by adults should ideally be seated in the same seat row as the adult. Where this is not possible, children should be separated by no more than one seat row from accompanying adults. This is because the speed of an emergency evacuation may be affected by adults trying to reach their children.

Whenever a number of infants and children are travelling together the airline should make every effort to ensure that they can be readily supervised by the responsible accompanying adults.

www.caa.co.uk/Passengers/On-bo

So no guarantee they'll be next to you, but they should ideally be on the same row, and not more than one row away.

Bibijayne
Bwatcher has already put a link up but this is the paragraph that is relevant.

Families, children and infants
The seating of children close by their parents or guardians should be the aim of airline seat allocation procedures for family groups and large parties of children.

Young children and infants who are accompanied by adults should ideally be seated in the same seat row as the adult. Where this is not possible, children should be separated by no more than one seat row from accompanying adults. This is because the speed of an emergency evacuation may be affected by adults trying to reach their children.

Whenever a number of infants and children are travelling together the airline should make every effort to ensure that they can be readily supervised by the responsible accompanying adults.