To wait to select flights seats til we do online check in?

[BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz]

2x adults and 2x dc flying at the very end of August with easyjet. We've only reserved tickets, not specified seats, and added some hold luggage.

Aibu to think that there'll be time to select vaguely close to each other seats when I do the online check in?

We've a 7yo so one of us adults will sit as close to him as possible (hopefully next to), and the 10yo is happy sitting wherever - though of course if she is close to one of us that'd be good.

Does everyone pay the extra to get their seats allocated at the time of booking?

I've never ever seen them actually separate a young child from a parent. An older child yes but never a child under 8.

It's usually a faff while they move people but I've never seen them leave a child sat away from a parent.

I have never paid for seat allocation, ever. I didn't know people commonly did this until I read this thread!! We've never been seated apart as a family.

"Ripped off"?

As an example, 2021 FY figures (i.e period to end March this year) for Easyjet:

"Headline loss before tax of £545 million (Reported loss before tax of £557 million)"

My emphasis, other airline accounts are available.

corporate.easyjet.com/~/media/Files/E/Easyjet/pdf/investors/results-centre/2022/2022-hy-results-release.pdf

Airlines' are not charities. You can complain all you like about seat pricing but ban it and in the current climate the airlines will recoup the money elsewhere in the booking process. Don't like seat pricing? Fair enough, choose another airline/mode of transport that doesn't do it

I saw first hand the way airline personnel and sub-contractors T&Cs were screwed down as some airlines chased customers by touting low ticket prices so you may have sensed I do lack a bit of sympathy with some of the comments...

Certainly if I was re-employed, this time as an airline CEO, I'd be tempted to announce a plan to split the sector costs equally across everybody on board each flight, rather than what goes on ATM...that would open a few eyes..

Do that for a few months and maybe people would then appreciate what a good deal most passengers get at the moment, even when they pay for seat choice.

...I think Mr O'Leary had a point recently when he said:

"“It’s too cheap for what it is. Every time I fly to Stansted, it seems absurd to me that a train ride to central London is more expensive than a plane ticket"

Looks like he was right twice that day....

Don't like seat pricing? Fair enough, choose another airline/mode of transport that doesn't do it

Don’t need to. While the option is there we just refuse to pay. And let the mugs with more money than sense take the hit 🤷‍♀️

TBH that's what I generally do if travelling solo..

I'm not a fan of the pay for seat choice policy, or any of the ancillary revenue polices but I worked somewhere that tried to hold the line against it for a long time but ultimately failed. The reality was the majority of the public liked the menu approach to ticketing, and that included seat choice.

There also needs to be an understanding that if pay for seat choice, etc somehow got banned the airlines won't magically absorb the costs, it would claw the revenue back through other elements of ticketing.

In years and years of flying easyJet with my kids, I’ve never paid extra for a seat and we just get what we are allocated when we check in. Never ever have we not been allocated seats altogether.

saying that, I have also flown lots with emirates, TAP and BA and again have never paid extra to sit together- we have always been allocated seats next to each other

Surely, if you want to sit near each other, you book the seats asap?

Leaving it till check-in might mean that most other passengers will have booked seats ahead of you so you'll end up sitting in random seats?!

Am I missing something here?

Surely if I check 4 people in at once, the system puts them in 4 seats together or near as a single process?

That’s the point.

They don’t.

Usually they do.

It's only Ryanair that deliberately split parties up unless you pay.

We usually use jet2, have never paid and are almost always together. Sounds like it's the same for EasyJet.

The odd time we've been separated is when we've booked only a few days in advance and as they open check in a month before travel, most people already have their seats.

Airlines' are not charities. You can complain all you like about seat pricing but ban it and in the current climate the airlines will recoup the money elsewhere in the booking process. Don't like seat pricing? Fair enough, choose another airline/mode of transport that doesn't do it

We booked some flight tickets on Friday night - anywhere between 8 and 16 hour flights one way. We tried the airline’s own website, but found that too confusing; because there were no direct flights, only stopovers; and returning with a different airline? So, we tried a third part app - another veritable maze of paying for chosen seats; semi flexible and flexible booking; guaranteed refunds or not; paying in advance for excess baggage (neither of us knew if this meant we got 10kgs of cabin baggage and then had to pay for 22kgs hold luggage, or an excess on top of that)…..We still couldn’t work out how to choose our seats on all four flights….

We don’t want a cheap headline price, only to find then it’s £hundreds more to pay for the flights, because it’s all broken down into segments!

bridgetreilly kids that age tend to be well behaved if sat next to strangers. It's the parents they play up for!

I suspect the sole purpose of stripping everything but the basic cost out is so that they appear to be the most competitive on Skyscanner etc. They hook you in by appearing as very cheap. I did the same for a holiday last year and once all the extras were thrown in, easyjet was the same as BA with everything included. Such a ballache trying to do a proper comparison.

I didn't pay last time I flew (alone) as I didn't care where I was BUT I was put in the last row with no window! Tbh I hadn't realised that there were seats without windows. As I get claustrophobic I asked to move and there was one other seat available. Next time I'll pay!

I pay it always. We fly to Spain three times this year and I have paid for the seats at booking . £6.99 per seat I think.

Just Just to point out that OPs flight was 10 months ago! This is a ZOMBIE.

So don’t do it 🤷🏼‍♀️

I travel with easyjet once a year.
I have always been assigned 3 seats in a row when traveling with my 2 children. BUT: I make sure to check in as soon as online check in opens.

My back-up plan would be to reject separate seats then pay extra to chose the more expensive seats if necessary (not happened yet).

If I were to leave it late and the flight was full there is a risk that there might not be seats available in a row. In which case I would have to contact the airline. What can they do if people have already printed their boarding passes? Try to sort it out on the day? No thank you, I can do with out that stress. So set an alarm to check in the day it opens.

I suspect the sole purpose of stripping everything but the basic cost out is so that they appear to be the most competitive on Skyscanner etc.

That's a given, the airline marketing people have been open about that for years..