Flybe - do I really need to pay £70 more to sit with my children?

[giddybiddy]

First time I have flown with them and having forked out over £500 for domestic flights (!), I am objecting to paying another £70 to ensure I sit with my 3 DDs. They are all under 11 so need to be with either DH or myself. I know airlines like Monarch/Thomson will put families together anyway, and Easy Jet preboard if you have an under 5 year old, so have not had problems in the past. Anyone have experience of domestic flights with Flybe please??

Civil Aviation Authority regulations state that each child must have a parent sitting next to them. This is not out of a desire to offer customer service, this is because it is safer for the other passengers in the case of a disaster if parents are in a position to rescue their children and stop them blocking the escape routes. Therefore you can insist on being seated together for free as it is a safety requirement for the airline.

I often try to sit next to the cutest, most compliant of our children and make DH sort the others out!

But havign said that I don't fly any more since the naked screening regulations. Point of principle.

boffin - is there an age specification - ie what is considered a 'child'?

Actually, there is no legal requirement...the CAA only make recommendations...this is from their website:

Family Groups

CAA guidelines ask airlines to develop procedures for the seat allocation of family groups, particularly when a group includes children. It is probable that family group members would seek each other out should an emergency evacuation be required, an action that could adversely affect the passenger flow rates towards emergency exits and might seriously affect the outcome of an evacuation.

Additionally, children and infants should be seated where they can be adequately supervised by an accompanying adult in the event of turbulence or a decompression in the cabin.

Airlines procedures should take into account the following factors:

Children, accompanied by adults, should ideally be seated in the same seat row as the adult. In wide-bodied aircraft, children and accompanying adults should not be separated by more than one aisle. Where this is not possible, children should be separated by no more than one seat row from accompanying adults.

Seat allocation procedures for family groups and suitable seating arrangements for large parties of children should reflect the above criteria.

Whenever small numbers of infants and children are travelling together, the airline should make every effort to ensure that they are allocated seats where they can be readily supervised by the responsible accompanying adult in both normal and abnormal conditions.

In the end I called Flybee's customer service who told me not to worry of course they couldn't separate us from our darling DDs.... The only pain was that we couldn't check in on line so had to do that at the airport. When we got there the phone call had obviously worked and our seats had all been pre-allocated anyway. Very pleased I didn't waste the money!