To not pay to choose seats but expect to sit together?

[Peachpicklepie]

I'll be flying with easyjet on a short flight (just over an hour) soon. It will be me, my toddler (2 years 4 months) and my baby (four months). Baby will be on my lap. According to the website they will sit children near an accompanying adult - surely in the case of a two year old this means next to?! I really don't want to spend another £20 on choosing seats if it's unnecessary.

At least she's willing to pay for her seat and not act the privileged parent whose little darling must be accommodated regardless

The point is you shouldn’t have to pay - willing or otherwise!

It shouldn’t be a privilege to sit next to your own child - it should be standard - no body should have to worry about seating arrangements.

I spend 24/7 with my children and know they’d be perfectly ok sitting on a plane and amuse themselves - maybe they are just independent? Maybe they can speak to strangers?

I’ve never paid extra - we are either together or we aren’t - no all parents ‘insist’ others move to accommodate their children.

No one HAS to fly. So it actually is a choice.

Those who for whatever reason need specific seats pay more than those who don't. As it should be.

I don’t HAVE to fly. Huh. I actually live in Australia, my family live in the UK. Next time I return so my family can see their grandchild/nephew etc or I have a sick relative/funeral… I’ll be sure to let them know I don’t HAVE to fly… and I’ll hop on a boat and be there in about 6 weeks 🤦🏽‍♀️

As a practical note... what do people want the legislation to be?
All U5s should be sat directly next to an adult in their booking (which means you can only fly on a 2:1 ratio... or potentially a 1:1 ratio for smaller planes)
Parents can select seats at booking for 1 adult plus plus children for free/one price?
Get rid of seat bookings, allow airlines to use an optimal seating plan algorithm accepting that the while party may be split up but children with an adult.

I don’t HAVE to fly

Who forced you to abandon your family and move to Australia?

Yeah @ILJ28 I mean you're not a refugee.
If family is that important to you that you want to see them often but can't afford the flight then you shouldn't have moved.
Also how much is cost of choosing seats balanced against the expense of a long haul flight as a percentage?

Also, if you don't want to be charged to pick seats then go with an airline that doesn't? BA, Qatar and Emirates for instance let you choose at check-in. There's rarely no seats left in a row if you check in ASAP unless you have like 5 kids.

If you don't , I guess the cost of assured seating isn't worth it to you, contradicting your point.

Also I am an immigrant myself :) similar long haul

It won’t be with a cheap airline like EasyJet though so is there a cost to choose a seat?

As a practical note... what do people want the legislation to be?
All U5s should be sat directly next to an adult in their booking (which means you can only fly on a 2:1 ratio... or potentially a 1:1 ratio for smaller planes)
Parents can select seats at booking for 1 adult plus plus children for free/one price?
Get rid of seat bookings, allow airlines to use an optimal seating plan algorithm accepting that the while party may be split up but children with an adult.

Exactly this. I always get the impression on these threads that many people do not seem to understand that passenger groups do not always neatly fit the configuration of the plane's seating and therefore it is not always feasible to sit them directly next to each other.

That those with under 5s in their group get free seat selection at the time of booking maybe? Lots of airlines e.g. BA do it for lap infants which is mostly unnecessary, especially on short haul where there’s no bassinet seats, because the baby will obviously be on your lap so can’t be separated from you. They’d be better not giving you a choice with the infant except maybe bassinet or not if it’s long haul, but letting those with toddlers/very young kids choose for free instead.

That those with under 5s in their group get free seat selection at the time of booking maybe?

That won’t solve it. You will get parents stating their 13yo has autism and they can’t be separated (yet can’t be arsed paying to sit together and/or planning adequately to get a flight with capacity/capability to sit together). Or, their 8yo gets air sick and they need to be seated together, but ditto, can’t be arsed paying with preference to be a CF getting on and expecting the plane to shuffle around for them.

I thought you did get free seat selection if you call to request assistance due to disability/SEN? If that’s not a thing already then it definitely should be!

I suppose you’re right and there’s always going to be CFers no matter how you do it. However, supervising a toddler is an absolute necessity and I really don’t agree with airlines trying to exploit young families because they know they don’t have any choice except to pay up (unless they’re entitled CFers). IMO it’s up there with the publicity stunt rumour that won’t die about Ryanair charging for the loos! It’s a basic need so of course it should be free. Anything else excluding of course disabilities, SEN or medical needs that you’d request special assistance for is really just a preference. So perfectly reasonable that you can choose whether or not it’s worth paying for.

It's also a problem for the poor adult who has to sit next to the whining toddler.

Hence why they should be sat next to (same row, same set of seats) as standard.

Airlines should not deliberately split up families.

Exactly this. I always get the impression on these threads that many people do not seem to understand that passenger groups do not always neatly fit the configuration of the plane's seating and therefore it is not always feasible to sit them directly next to each other

Well to be fair we were a family of three so we always fitted neatly into one row.

That those with under 5s in their group get free seat selection at the time of booking maybe?

Well, we know what will happen then, don’t we? Prices for all adults will go up. So those without children travelling will subsidise your children …

The fundamental thing is that flying is NOT a human right! It’s a choice. When you make the choice to fly (or emigrate to Australia or whatever) you also choose to spend money.

it’s not a “human right” to sit next to anyone specifically. If you need or want to, you do that and bear the consequences.

I would just pay the £20

Or more likely they will put the cost of the child fares up?

Well, we know what will happen then, don’t we? Prices for all adults will go up. So those without children traveling will subsidies your children

How do you work that out? Maybe if people stopped being ripped off then they would stop doing it?

Can you imagine if the us fares increased depending on how popular a bus was? It either costs X to fly or it doesn’t.

If revenue from seat choice goes the airlines will have pretty much no option but to raise revenue from elsewhere in the pricing structure..

You can have lots of fun with numbers with this since it's hard to get definite data from the airlines but you can make some credible estimates. If for example, half of the passengers (so about 100) on a typical Loco flight paid 10 pound for seat choice and that company did 1000 sectors a day that's the airline earning a million a day, give or take, on a very good day through that revenue stream.

Now I can hear jaws drop and no doubt calls of profiteering, but now for context have a look at an average airline's annual reports, especially the profits, and then subtract that guesstimate of 365 million a year ( and that's a max because I'm ignoring off season when income drops).. Is the company still in the black and if so by how much?

For completeness also look at any other airline's books for the last three years and then have a think if profits in 2023 really are excessive.

Fundamentally whichever way you slice this if paying for seat choice goes, whatever the reason, the airlines will claw the lost revenue back from passengers through other means.

The most sensible post to date. Of course ticket prices would go up. It’s just economics.

Yeah, I love the idea that if we all just stop paying it they’ll give it to us for free instead.

Maybe in an ideal world, but back in the real world…

My point was some airlines currently offer free seat selection to groups with a lap infant aged 0-2 which isn’t really necessary and they’d be better not doing that but offering it to those with kids aged 2-4 instead. So a like for like swap, just offering to the age group that actually needs it.

I work that out by observation & thinking. It's not difficult.

Cheap airline tickets emerged from a change of airline policies about pricing. I remember the time before cheap air travel.

Various low cost airlines (for example, RyanAir) introduced a demand-based 'dynamic pricing' model, at the same time as they stripped out and priced everything - bar the actual flight - as paid-for extras.

And then used that model to drop the base price of the flight.

This was mostly for short haul travel. It's interesting that there are far fewer airlines which use this model for long haul travel (anything over 8 hours). Apart from the appalling Scoot Airlines (cheap offshoot of Singapore Airlines - avoid, avoid, avoid.

It might be (I don't run an airline) that passengers are far less prepared to put up with RyanAir style conditions on a trip to Australia or the US west coast.

The cheap airline/base price/short haul argument runs that you pay a base price for a flight to get you from A to B, and that price is dynamically priced (higher at popular times, lower at less popular times). You then add the things that are important to you - seat choice, hold luggage, big cabin bag etc etc.

It means that if Person A is happy to sit anywhere and carry very little, they pay for that. If Person B prefers a particular seat & wants to bring a cabin bag on the flight, she pays for that. And so on.

It's not rocket science to work out that if international law & industry standards required that families are seated together as a priority and without extra 'seat choice' payment, airlines using this base-price model will attempt to recoup income elsewhere.

The opinion that airlines should not price this way is a whole other argument.

I'd pay. £20 on top of the cost of a whole holiday isn't so much for peace of mind and reassurance.