Pre booked plan seats!

[Waitingwaitingwaiting33]

We’ve just flown home from a long haul holiday me DH, 3 x DD (one under 2 but we paid for a seat for her).

I sat with one DD with one spare seat next to me. We did pay for reserved seats. A small child (3) was placed to sit next to us with his mother sat the row in front. They hadn’t reserved seats and apparently even at that age the row in front is classed as ok for the parent to sit away from them.

the mother popped her headphones in and fell asleep and I was left with an extra child! They were upset (understandable), couldn’t work the tv, needed help opening meals up etc. I tried waking the mother a few times and she came back to take him to the toilet twice but that’s it! I asked cabinet crew and they said unless I wanted to swap there was nothing they could do. I didn’t want to swap as I’d be leaving my 3 year old alone!

would anyone else be annoyed? And what else would you have done?

thanks!

That is shocking behaviour on the part of the mother and yes I would have been annoyed too. I'm not sure what else you could have done in the circumstances, other than neglect a 3 year child (that his mother was already neglecting).

I'm going to say YABU for putting up with that. You should have roused the mother every single time that child needed or asked something. Or pressed the cabin crew call button. Don't let arseholes walk all over you!

This is on you OP. You should have tapped the mum on the shoulder every time the child wanted something and not provided support yourself. No idea why you let her get away with this. At least you’ve learnt for next time.

Absolutely not acceptable. But to be honest, I can't see a good end to the situation.

If the mum was at all reasonable, she wouldn't have thought it was ok to leave a 3 year old on their own on a flight in the first place, so its unlikely that she would be reasonable regardless of what you did, or how many times you nudged or disturbed her.

Crazy to let her do it though, the airline should really have intervened and moved her and the child somewhere else. I would have been badgering them every time the child needed anything, because I would wager that there would have been more of a chance of them giving and solving it, than the mother...

This. I bet a solo male passenger would have.

I'd have thought a solo passenger, male or female, would have just swapped seats.

But unless the solo passenger was sitting next to the mother, all that would have done is moved the child to become another passengers problem? The OP didn't want to swap to be away from her child. I dohink the airline policy for under fives should be next to a parent.

Thanks for the input everyone!

I did try to get her attention but she wasn’t directly in front of us, she was in the row in front in the middle aisle (we were on the left).

im still annoyed but thankfully home!

I would have called staff over for every interaction with the child and refused to engage.

Feel sorry for the kid but it's their system and in front, behind or aisle adjacent counts as being next to a parent.

Yes, not cool.

As an aside, its not just you OP, it seems to have crept into the lexicon, but since when do we stop 'booking' and start 'pre-booking'?

This is the problem with presuming someone will swap... they never consider if the person next to the child is unable to swap.

I would have been annoyed and I would have woken the mother or sent the child to find the flight attendant, every single time. Otherwise you are just enabling the mother to behave badly and expect others to do free childcare.

Sorry but what a melt! You babysat someone else's child who you did not know and let them carry on doing it the whole flight! Why couldn't one parent sit in that seat and the other parent have the child with them two rows in front?

There was only one parent.

It is ridiculous that children under a certain age aren’t automatically sat WITH (not close to) one parent without having to pay a premium for it, and shocking that it then becomes someone else’s problem.

But yes, you should have either woken the mother or called airline staff each and every time to stop enabling this lazy behaviour. Shocking that the mother put headphones on!

I wasnt talking about the op I was replying to someone saying a lone male passenger wouldn't look after the child. I can't see why a lone passenger wouldn't swap with the mother then the mother looks after her child and the lone passenger can relax like the mother did.

I think that for children under 7 or 8 either the fee to book seats should be waived or it should be compulsory, it’s ridiculous that this scenario happens.

There may not have been any lone passengers, or at least any willing to swap. And why should a lone passenger have to swap anyway? The responsibility is entirely on the mother who didn’t reserve seats for her and her child together. Rather than blaming the airline or inconveniencing other passengers, I think any flight bookings that include a young child where a seat reservation fee is usually optional should make the reservation fees mandatory for under 12s and accompanying adults.

Are you deliberately misunderstanding? A previous poster said a lone male passenger wouldn't have done it. I said I'd think a lone passenger would swap seats so they'd sit where mother was and mother would sit by the child. Id do that rather than entertain their child.

It wasn't about a lone passenger on this flight it was about an unknown solo passenger on an unknown flight sitting by an unknown child and swapping so the unknown mother could sit next to and look after their own child. A random solo passenger on the original flight wasnt the issue.

If you can't follow that can someone swap seats with me, I don't mind if they are make or female.

ive been in a similar position but someone else was basically ignoring my child whilst I was a row behind and struggled to reach / help with anything. It wasn’t for lack of trying but a miscommunication between my partner and I where I thought he’d checked and and paid to reserve us seats together and he thought I’d done it. By the time we realised 3 days before there weren’t any seats together at all so there wa no point t us paying for 4 seats scattered about the plane. I was furious with the airline for letting it haopen

Tbf, the idea that she popped on headphones and had a nap is a joke. I'd have woken her up or called over an attendant and raised cncerns along the lines of safeguarding because for all they know you could be a child sex offender.

I'll bet young kids are never randomly placed next to lone males.