Asking someone to move seats on a flight? Aibu ?

[wearejustfriends]

Last week I was travelling to Gran Canaria with TUI.
I had booked mine and boyfriends seats when we booked and paid £22 for both.
I had the window and he had the middle.

A lady sat on the end and her daughter was in front.
She asked could they have our two seats and we have hers /daughters or my boyfriend switch with her daughter.
I politely said no.
Which she wasn't happy about.
We got "what difference does it make"
"Your adults,my daughter is sacred of flying and is a minor"

Anyway we wouldn't move.

Was I in the wrong ?
Surely if she was that bothered she could have paid like us.

I think she was unreasonable to even ask. By asking it immediately puts you on the spot. She's created an uncomfortable atmosphere by being a CF. If it was that important to her she should have paid in advance.

I know to some people it might not seem like much of a "expensive" but I paid extra so I was able to sit with my boyfriend.
I don't really want to throw money away for nothing.
I may as well just flush £40 down the loo.

Also when booking with tui it's pretty clear you pay if you want to select seats.

She probably relies on people swapping rather than paying.

I pay extra for my DS to have additional leg room. I wouldnt then swap!

@LouB76

Why should the base cost increase for every flyer just because parents of young children can’t take advantage of the discount?

Absolutely. If you choose to have children then you have to accept that those children come with extra costs. Extra costs that are your responsibility, not a random stranger on the plane's responsibility.

The point is that seat selection doesn't cost the airline anything. Nor does priority boarding. Nor does having a bag (though total baggage weight does impact fuel usage and cost).

People need to shift their mindset. Instead of thinking (for example), ‘my ticket is 200 and seat selection is 20 so I won’t bother with seat selection’, it needs to be ‘my ticket is 220 and as part of that I get to pick a flight/seat I’m happy with’.

Why should people have to switch their mindset to appease a tiny minority of parents that don’t want to pay for what their children will need.

It suits plenty of people to pay for a ticket and put up with random seat allocation, people who don’t care where they sit shouldn’t have to pay extra for it.

The model the airlines are using clearly works for them and the majority of customers. Parents need to suck up the extra cost of sitting right beside their children and not expect others to pay for it for them.

The point is that seat selection doesn't cost the airline anything. Nor does priority boarding. Nor does having a bag (though total baggage weight does impact fuel usage and cost).

It doesn’t cost them anything, but the aviation industry has suffered a lot recently and they are a business designed to make money. They do not exist to provide convenience for parents with small children.

Seats together is an extra that some people want and some people don’t so it makes sense to allow the people that do want that extra the opportunity to pay for it.

@FairyCakeWings

The point is that seat selection doesn't cost the airline anything. Nor does priority boarding. Nor does having a bag (though total baggage weight does impact fuel usage and cost).

It doesn’t cost them anything, but the aviation industry has suffered a lot recently and they are a business designed to make money. They do not exist to provide convenience for parents with small children.

Seats together is an extra that some people want and some people don’t so it makes sense to allow the people that do want that extra the opportunity to pay for it.

It’s about trying to be competitive.

So they try to keep the base flight price as low as possible but make various things extras you can choose or leave.

They don’t have to offer priority boarding or seat reservations or baggage. And some people will book without any of it. Whereas others will decide that they care about baggage and seat reservations but not priority boarding or security fast track or whatever else there was available.

Just as some people will choose to pay more for business class rather than economy.

The industry is trying to offer something competitive to people. The alternative to all the extra charges is actually just much higher ticket prices. I don’t think people are really up for that though.

The airlines could easily solve this by preallocating seats next to each other for parents of children under, say 12, before opening seat reservation for everyone. What could be simpler?

I think changing the mindset might be nice for the people who don’t care though. They can think: well I save £20 on seat selection I don’t care about. That’s a win for them.

It’s the people who want it who feel they’re being ripped off or something. But the fact is it’s something only some customers even want, and that makes it ripe for positioning as an optional extra.

The alternative is like insisting that you must bundle food and drinks in with every cinema ticket (increasing the ticket price as a result). Lots of people don’t want that, so it’s something people can elect to pay for.

Or insisting that delivery charges should be set as next day, timed to an hour slot delivery - which is more expensive. Lots of people are happy with it arriving some time in the next 7 days. Why should everyone pay more because some people feel the quickest and most convenient option should be the default?

This is just how the world works. Having kids is expensive. There are so many additional costs involved. Having to pay for seat reservations on your holiday so you can sit next to them is just one of many things that cost more because you’ve got kids.

@Blossomtoes

The airlines could easily solve this by preallocating seats next to each other for parents of children under, say 12, before opening seat reservation for everyone. What could be simpler?

What about travellers without children who want to choose their seats at the time of booking, if they book as soon as the flight becomes available?

I don't understand where she wanted her daughter to sit and why? So they had window and middle like you?

@Blossomtoes

The airlines could easily solve this by preallocating seats next to each other for parents of children under, say 12, before opening seat reservation for everyone. What could be simpler?

What could be simpler?

They could also solve this by only accepting passengers under the age of, say 12, if they and one adult had paid the surcharge to reserve seats next to each other, unless they were flying as an unaccompanied minor.

What about travellers without children who want to choose their seats at the time of booking, if they book as soon as the flight becomes available?

What about them? There would still be plenty of seats available for them to choose from. I checked in for flights on 5 and 12 May this weekend and was allocated two seats together without paying. The paid seat selection has been available for weeks but we don’t care whether we sit together so weren’t prepared to pay. There obviously wasn’t much of an uptake for paid for reservations on that flight.

Blossomtoes
The airlines could easily solve this by preallocating seats next to each other for parents of children under, say 12, before opening seat reservation for everyone. What could be simpler?
What about travellers without children who want to choose their seats at the time of booking, if they book as soon as the flight becomes available?

👆🏻This.
I want try seat when I book my ticket and I’m prepared to pay for it.
Are you saying that nobody should be able to book a seat ever then, because that’s what would happen under your suggestion, assuming families can book seats on a flight at any time right up until the flight is full (and which passengers won’t know about).

Ridiculous.

Just pay for your kids seats and don’t expect other people to do it for you.

What if a family with small kids books when the plane is more than half full.

Are you saying that the airline should forgo all those seat fees in case somebody with minors books?

They are businesses trying to make money.

And as mentioned, small children have to be near you anyway, so they do take this into account.

@Blossomtoes

The airlines could easily solve this by preallocating seats next to each other for parents of children under, say 12, before opening seat reservation for everyone. What could be simpler?

It’s simpler for people to to one transaction and pay for the seat if they want it at the same time.

If you want to make under 12 free allocation then the increase in price will be shared by everyone in the ticket.

I much prefer the choice, and we usually pay the extra.

Are you saying that nobody should be able to book a seat ever then

No, I’m saying don’t open seat selection until the flight is full, then allocate families before it’s open. Then you can choose and pay for your seat. They have data to show which seats are most popular and not allocate those to families.

Obviously no passengers who paid to choose their seats wanted 18 E and F on our flight so we got them for nothing.

No, I’m saying don’t open seat selection until the flight is full, then allocate families before it’s open. Then you can choose and pay for your seat. They have data to show which seats are most popular and not allocate those to families.

So you penalise those of us without children, great.

I'm a nervous flier and pay to make sure I'm sitting next to DH. If I couldn't guarantee that then I wouldn't fly long haul. What happens then, do I get the cost of my flight refunded?

I want to book my seat when the bookings open for the flight.

If it's a very short flight I'm happy to sit wherever I'm allocated.

If people have children and want to be assured of sitting right next to them as opposed to near them they should pay for that assurance. If the airline starts preallocating seats to families no doubt that will cause the base rate to rise. If people want extras they need to pay.

So you penalise those of us without children, great

How are you being penalised because a few seats aren’t available? You’re in the same position as if a few other people got to the seat selection before you.

I think my experience illustrates that paying for seat selection is a con.

If the airline starts preallocating seats to families no doubt that will cause the base rate to rise

People who refuse to pay to choose their seat hasn’t caused the base to rise.

@Blossomtoes

So you penalise those of us without children, great

How are you being penalised because a few seats aren’t available? You’re in the same position as if a few other people got to the seat selection before you.

I think my experience illustrates that paying for seat selection is a con.

Are you suggesting under 12s don’t pay?

Because if you lose that price of the tickets will rise

Plus the extra hassle to everyone to wait and check emails to do sway allocation later - plus extra cost to do this on airline side

Tickets are very cheap atm for some because of the fast booking and selection

If you think it’s a con don’t spend the extra

Sway - seat

I don't think it's necessarily a con. I've flown with a companion on Jet2 and often we've not been allocated seats next to one another - we weren't sufficiently bothered to pay the extra.

No, I’m saying don’t open seat selection until the flight is full, then allocate families before it’s open. Then you can choose and pay for your seat. They have data to show which seats are most popular and not allocate those to families.

Why would they allocate the seats that are the least popular to the families that are getting to sit together for free? That would mean that the people who want to pay to choose a decent seat have fewer, shittier options.

Airlines already try and sit families near each other, the only problem is that that isn’t good enough for some families because they want to be right next to each other, so there’s nothing wrong with asking them to pay for that.

Also, what would sitting families together really mean? Would two adults travelling with one child all get to stay together for free because they are a family, or would it be just one adult with the child? What about in larger families with more children? You could end up with one parent and two children at the front of the plane and one parent with one child at the back of the plane, but what if that family would have preferred to pay to all be in one or two rows together?

The airlines do it the way they do it now because it’s what works best for them and their customers.