Paying for seats on flights

[user1471508666]

We are flying to America in October and I assumed as a family of 6 would be seated together. Looking on their extras it says you can pay to reserve seats, does that mean even if we checked in together we wouldn’t be seated together?
Should I pay the extra to ensure we are together?

I think a lot of people still expect the full service airline experience when they are paying cheap no frills airline prices. Separating families if they could be seated together seems pretty stupid and I totally understand why it annoys people but we all know certain airlines do it so it makes sense to plan accordingly. I only fly one full service airline ( not in the UK) and pay $$$ every year to make sure I keep my airline status that gives me perks like choosing my seat when I book. I am not moving from my chosen seat unless you offer me similar and I am not explaining to any random why. The last whiny dad who tried was told to STFU, especially as both himself and his wife were seated next to their kids just not in the configuration he would have preferred.

I’m surprised you have to pay extra on long haul. That does seem like a piss take.

BA (short haul) will seat you next to your child without you paying extra. I’m only really interested in at least one of us being sat next to DD so less concerned where the other adult gets allocated.

I’m surprised you have to pay extra on long haul. That does seem like a piss take.

It's a more recent development than on shorthaul but same logic applies.

It alliows the airlines to offer low base fares, across e.g. the Atlantic, whilst making at least some profit.

Some passengers,ll e.g. solo travellers, are quite keen on the idea.

I've never paid for reserved seats and never been separated from children. My children are preteen and teens and could cope okay say away from us. For long haul I might just pay it though, if I could afford it.

I've been separated when travelling just adults, but i don't mind..

Exactly. Prices are a fraction of what they used to be, and flying far more accessible to average people. And more safe.

I like flying and we make it part of the holiday. I just budget for the seats. I don’t want a random next to me on an overnight flight when I’m trying to kip

Why ask on a site
It is up to you what you do

You need to pay, we’ve just come back from Japan and a family hadn’t paid and the adults were on the rows behind and in front of their kids and where asking people to swop, people did in the end but it was very awkward.

My kids are teens but I’ve paid to sit together on 12hr flights this year. You are paying ££s for the holiday so if it’s important, or more pleasant for you, to be seated together then pay it. @user1471508666 is the stress of worrying about being seated separately worth not paying?How old /independent are the people in your group?

Wouldn’t pay necessarily on short haul now kids are older as could easily manage 3hr flights without sitting together. BA did seat us together for free flying back in from short haul (I’d paid on way out) it does make me wonder if seat allocation is still mostly free in some other countries but we are used to being charged now?

Also flying to the US, we've paid to book seats, don't want the risk of being apart. It is annoying as when we last went in 2023 the carrier had a chunk of the seats free, not the case now, we've just paid the cheapest which are further back.

Throughout Europe now you are often talking about the same carriers, so being in the UK makes little difference.

Entitlement is believing you have the right to have what you want without having to work or pay for it.

Entitlement can also be the belief that you deserve something because of your particular status, e.g. being a parent/family unit.

For some people with children this sense of entitlement is unconscious and 'baked into' their everyday lives, rightly or wrongly.

Up thread some PP argue that market economics shouldn't apply to their use of a luxury commodity like flying. That's entitlement.

Clearly this is nuanced in some situations, e.g. it's reasonable for a disabled person to feel entitled to an accessible space (the law).

But - travelling with a child or family group is not a disability, as far as I'm aware, and so expecting special treatment is clearly entitlement.

It royally pisses me off when people do that. I was once on a flight that got delayed as woman was making a scene about sitting with her child. Personally I'd have kicked them both off. Book, or suck it up.

I was only applying my asessment to myself to OP and myself where I previously made an assumption, as I think OP did that everyone would in a party would generally be sat together. Not because they have children but just because it would seem the normal thing to do.

I always thought paying for specific seats was just because some people like the aisle or whatever, not that it had anything to do with sitting together. If I hadn't read about it on here the first time I got on a plane with children I wouldn't have paid. Not because I think I'm entitled to sit with my children but it just wouldn't have crossed my mind I wouldn't be. Same as I would have assumed I'd be sat with the rest of the party if we were just adults.

But what if pre-booked seats were taken so it was not possible to accommodate 2 seats together? It can happen on busy flights.

I know that now. I admitted I hadn't got as far as realising that was a possibility!

Not a wind up, I just wanted to make sure.
we haven’t flown at all as adults, my husband not at all.
all children are over the age of 12 so I just wanted to be certain it’s worth paying.
We are flying with Virgin for anyone who asked.

Why bloody answer if you don’t like my question?

In that case, if it's a special holiday and first time fliers involved I would just pay so you can relax and look forward to enjoying the experience together.

Slightly OT but why do airlines bother/overbook on the presumption of no shows? It doesn’t matter to them if 300 people book and no one shows up, they’ve got the money regardless.

In answer to the OP, I’d pay. We always do. I don’t like flying and prefer to sit next to DH.

I will do now, thank you and to others that were helpful.

For other posters, I certainly didn’t feel we were entitled to I just assumed that’s what happens as another poster had also said that they originally did too

It is actually an amazingly complicated mathematical problem to assign passengers to seats in such a way that the maximum number of people end up next to the others on the same booking.

Before the Internet, the airlines' computers did this. You can get pretty close to a solution if you start with an empty plane by and seat the groups of 6, then the groups of 5, then 4, and so on. At the end you assign the last few empty seats to the solo travellers.

The problem is that the airlines now allow people to choose their seats, which plays havoc with the allocation. People pay for the front row and the exit rows for the extra legroom, which is why those are the most expensive. But for example DP always chooses an aisle seat (to not have to climb over anyone for the loo) in rows 4/5/6 (to be able to get off the plane quicker). Other people will choose a window seat for the view, or to not have people climbing over them to get to the loo. You only need a few of those for your pool of assignable seats to become much smaller and more fragmented. (One of the reasons why the warning that Ryanair used to put about "you might be assigned the dreaded middle seat" is rubbish is that couples who sit together will always have a middle seat when it's a 3-seat row, so the middle seats are pre-selected almost as much as the window or aisle seats.)

So it's a trade-off. Allowing people to choose their seats makes random allocation much more likely to split families up. But since (a) choosing seats makes money for the airline and (b) lots of travellers really like being able to choose their seat for a few quid, this isn't going to go away any time soon.

You can also choose to reframe the situation. There is a temptation to think "Oh, the fare's only £60, why do I have to pay £45 for a bag and £10 for a seat?", but if you were to go with a more expensive airline for £140 with the bag and seat included you'd be worse off.

Yes I think you should. Much as I think the practice of charging extra for this is something that should be outlawed.

I think its an entirely reasonable question to ask. For example, if you buy 4 eurostar tickets together the free reservations they issue group you together and most people would prefer to be seated with the party they are travelling with. Unfortunately, unless you pay on flights it's not guaranteed.

Have a lovely holiday @user1471508666

Non optional extras (for example Air BnB cleaning fee) are now outlawed. Where you have a choice, such as seat booking, it is still lawful.