To believe that ‘next to you’ means next to me and not behind or in front of me?

[AreYouAGod]

Booked first holiday abroad in years. TUI in their ‘upgrades’ emails told me to pre book seats. £30 per person to do this each way. So £240 to pick seats which is just mind blowing.

Spoke to an advisor and they said that I only needed to pre book the seats for me and my husband as the kids were young, so would automatically be ‘sat next to us’. I queried this multiple times.

Two weeks out from departure and I check and, predictably, we are not seated together.

Call TUI this morning and the advisor says ‘next to you’ can mean behind, in front or across the aisle.

This cannot be true. So I query the sense in this and she cuts me off.

Call back again. (This is an hour of my life on hold, going through security, talking to a robot about my ‘problem’, all with a rising sense of dread that I’m going to be in a viral TikTok or complained about in an AIBU thread for begging other passengers to move seats.)

Get through again to be told the kids could and probably would be seated anywhere. And if I don’t pay up it’s unlikely we will be put together.

So I just had to fork out £80 to change the seats and pre book the kids seats.

AIBU to think that ‘next to us’ means the seat next to me?

Surely seating 7 and 8 year old children from their family is a safety risk on a flight? Not to mention really annoying for other passengers?

Feel free to tell me I’m just being tight but I can’t understand why I’m paying for seat allocation on top of the flight costs. Plus, I have been told three different things by three different TUI advisors.

No wonder there are so many seat flight dramas - no one knows what’s going on!

This has always been the case on planes.
It can be across aisle etc.
Its common and fairly widely known because of situations like yours where people get caught out

Its an airline standard.

Otherwise, there would have to be a limit on how many children can travel with an adult based on the seating layout.

It's always been the case that next to you can be any seat near you (in front of behind, either seat next to or separated by a aisle) if you don't like you or options are either chance it and put up with or pre-book the seats

This is exactly why I stopped flying budget airlines. They're not actually budget. I've noticed that Virgin are starting this. The travel experience is thwarted with these kinds of shitty things IMO.

I think YANBU because you can only go on what you've been told by them specifically and they got it wrong multiple times and left you out of pocket as a result.
But now you know for next time never to trust the seating allocation system.

Planes have been like this for years. Probably decades.

It’s in the T&C’s and has been like this for many years. I’ve never seen any seat flight drama, most people pay to sit together these days I think.

It’s an airline standard but I agree it’s not really right. Different with older kids but young kids it’s not right really

If 2 people book 2 seats then how would children automatically be sat next to the parents as other could book seats around the parents in between the parents booking their tickets and later on

We book all seats at the time booking so we all know where we are all sat

Just looked at a couple of airlines. Its definitely in tui's t&c's that next to include behind and front

All the other airlines I've quickly looked at seem to use similar definations other than Ba (who can still seat you across an aisle)

I think that people forget it’s easier for higher cost airlines to have “next to you” as the seat to your left and right but not across the aisle as less families are flying on them.

But if you are on a flight to Tenerife, for example, and it a plane packed with kids then the jenga problem becomes much much worse. On top of that, you are less likely to find someone willing to swap with you as everyone has paid to sit next to their own kids.

Nope, YANBU. It sounds horrendous, nonsensical and money-grabbing on their part. I can't believe I'm going to praise Ryanair, but back when my dch were young and we were going to France a lot, ( late 90s) Ryanair seats weren't allocated but they had a policy of letting families with dch under 12 (?) on first. It meant you knew you'd be sitting together. Others could pay for priority boarding. It was a bit of a scramble for everyone else after that, but at least it was cheap!

Budget airlines arent budget now i agree.

Shitty airport location, Luton or Stanstead at stupid oclock so need a hotel the night before. No baggage. No seating.

Might as well stump up for BA and get baggage and seating included as it ends up cheaper.

Next to you in aviation guidelines means next to, infront, behind or across from. But they are just guidelines and not the law, obviously once people start booking seats they cannot always manage to stick to them. You are presumably going within the school holidays so most people will be travelling with DC. Always best to factor in the fee for selecting seats when budgeting for a holiday. As your DC are a little older, the airline will not necessarily move people around to cater to you as there may be people with younger DC in the same situation or in a rush to take off.

They follow the CAA guidance this is on their website https://www.caa.co.uk/passengers-and-public/passenger-guidance/planning-your-flight/

Seating allocations
Many airlines charge for seat selection. Carriers should aim to seat children under 12 in the same row, or no more than one row or aisle away, from their accompanying adult

Recently back from a TUI holiday with our grown up kids and for the first time we didn't book any seats.
On both flights we were all sat in the front, extra leg room seats! We were really surprised.
We always booked all seats when they were younger, but I don't think it was so expensive then - an extra £340 on top of the holiday cost is ridiculous!

Yes, next to you normally means to your immediate left or immediate right.

However, it is(I thought) very well known that next to you when it comes to airlines means any seat that has no seat between your seat and it, in any direction.

There are at least 75 threads a year about plane seating allocation and yep, this is standard. Posters always warn that ‘next to you’ can mean in front, behind, across the aisle etc.

Plane travel is not cheap. The budget airlines make it look ‘budget’ by stripping out as much as possible and adding it back in as ‘extras’ to make the headline fare look low.

Budget airlines arent budget now i agree.
I completely disagree.

Maybe not for a full on family that takes luggage, wantsspecific seats etc but this year I have had return flights to Morocco, Romania, Vienna and Norway for under £50. I have a few other pla es booked for under 50 quid for later in the year.

I dont care where me and my mate sit, we dont sit together, I take a small luggage bag that can hold 7 to 10 days of clothing so I don't need luggage fees, I dont want to be fast tracked and I don't need a meal.
Long may it continue.

At this time of year the "budget" airlines' prices are often the same as other "non-budget" operators.

This has been the case for a very long time. At 7 and 8 most children will be able to sit across the aisle/behind (i have a child with ADHD and even he could easily sit in this arrangement). I actually think it should be built into the cost of the tickets like BA do to save all the drama tbh

Paying for seat selection (and check in luggage) is part of the budget airline business model since at least the 1990s. Sure the cost of the flight may be cheap but once you add on all the extras it really tots up.

You need to factor in seat selection cost as part of the holiday budget.

I have travelled a lot and always thought kids automatically sat next to you until April when I was sat behind a child about 7 and the dad was a few rows behind me.
He was worried sick and spent most of the flight standing in the aisle next to his son.
I don't know if it changed at some point or maybe they used to put a lot more effort into ensuring children are with someone.
Obviously I know about paying to ensure you are sitting next to someone but I've never seen it happen with children until then.