Airlines forced to seat children with parents

[ibeentothetop]

Thanks Burnham, now it’ll be more expensive for child free people like me to pick a seat. I can’t believe that things like this even need to be legislated for.

They charge what they can to make a profit, then the extras are extortionate to add to the profit. They’re not going to allow people to fly and make the business a loss.

Yeah well it will all even out in the end when our kids subsidise your pension and wipe your arse in the nursing home.

What other safety measures that benefit all passengers do you think it reasonable for only certain passengers to pay for?

@all uk airlines sit children near to parents. It may be across the aisle, in front or behind. Or as a parent you could pay about £10 each seat on booking to guarantee you all sit where you want (if a shortfall flight). In the whole scheme of things it is a tiny cost and most of us just accept and pay it....The entitlement of parents not adding this into their holiday cost and then expecting people who have actually paid for certain seats to change because they have children is crazy. Banging on about safety is disingenuous, if your child is too young to sit away from you and be safe, just pay-up. At the end of the day they are your responsibility, not the airlines or other passengers.

If parents aren’t currently subsidising your flight, why would this make any difference at all to what you pay? This is already the policy of almost all airlines in the U.K. for safety reasons. It isn’t really changing anything, except perhaps making parents who might have paid for seats in the past because they didn’t realise that airlines sit parents with children already for safety reasons more aware of the fact that they don’t need to pay unless they have particular seat preferences or want to be seated together as a whole family group.

In the row in front or behind is not next to a child. In the event of an emergency those parents will still be blocking people exiting whilst the try and reach their child. It is not safe.

Plus airlines should have a duty of care to children to ensure they are not placed at risk due to their policies. Placing children next to strangers places them at risk. It is quite worrying how little regard many posters have for the safety of potentially very young children.

No, you're wrong, they very much do allow individuals to fly at sub-cost to the airlines.

The really low fares you see, e.g. a year out from travel or deep off season (e.g. UK the Med for well sub £100) don't cover the cost of carriage..often it's not even close.

The airline then hopes to make more revenue from that individual passenger from ancillary sales. Failing that they at least hope there are enough higher payers to top things up to make that flight profitable, but even that's not guaranteed off season..

All done to allow low fares to be advertised, but leads to typical profit per passenger at the LoCos, over a year, of maybe sub £10 (probably less with current fuel costs)..it all has to.be carefully judged.

I think there a such a thing as too cheap. Flying on a plane should not be this cheap.

Why?

I won’t get a pension 😂

Because its a public forum where anyone can post. Dad's post too believe it or not.

Arguments about safety can't possibly be disingenuous when they're the entire point. The entitled people are the ones who want to try and opt out of paying their equal share of necessary safety provisions, one of which is ensuring parents and carers are next to their charges so they aren't getting in the way trying to reach them in emergencies.

At the end of the day, safety is very much the responsibility of the airlines.

Parents are responsible for their own children. If they can’t act rationally in an emergency situation they should pay the £9 Ryanair charges for picking a seat.

Looking at tge actuak regs, the only thing that has changed is raising the age to 14 from 12.
They can still put a 3yo in a different row, or acriss an aisle. Its only one adult, not the whole party. Abd it can still rely on flight attendants having to beg/force people to move seats.

So its rather toothless really.

Airlines are responsible for the safety of passengers on board, including in emergency situations.

They should never have allowed you to think you were entitled not to pay your equal share of this important safety measure, any more than you ought to be opt out of any of the other safety measures that affect all flyers.

Not so; the proposed legislation in the UK and the EU stipulate “next to”.

And next includes across aisles and directly in front and behind.

Otherwise you cant take multiple children on some flights!

You are pointing your finger at the wrong person. Whether l am travelling for work or leisure l always book a seat immediately after booking my flight.

The issue here (like booking fees, cleaning fees in Air bnb etc) is that unavoidable extras (the ones you have to have according to the T&Cs) should not be charged additionally. This applies across the UK a d the EU.

Responsibility doesn't get divided up in this way. Parents are responsible for children but from a legal standpoint so are the airlines - they are responsible for the safety of everyone on board. Children are people with their own rights, not just an accessory of the parents. Your worldview that sees children as appendages of parents is distorted.

I don’t honestly mind how they do it as long as, if I’ve paid for a window seat, I can sit in it.

If they say that parents have to book specific seats for kids under a certain age and they can do it without paying extra, that’s fine.

But if for whatever reason parents get on a plane & need people to give up seats they’d paid for, those people should be compensated.

Edited to add that I would move if asked - no desire whatsoever to sit next to a kid & I do think they should get to sit with their parents. But I wouldn’t be impressed.

Are you going to encourage your kids to work in a nursing home?

I'm kind of hoping when (if?) this change comes in we'll get less traffic about passengers and crew being screwed around, especially by a small minority that "can't book, won't book" but we'll have to see what the new rules will really demand of airlines and parents.

Surely if you can afford a holiday to the US for a family of four or more, you can afford to pay for seats?

As a child free person, why is MUMSNET the place to moan?

I'm quite happy for you to sit with my kids.

Good luck 🍀