MSE News: Scrap 'family tax' that pushes parents to pay to sit next to kids

Credit-Crunched

I travel a lot, between Uk and Europe, many time a mother / father has asked to swap seats so they can sit next to their child.

Obviously, I agree without any fuss, as most rational people would.

I think people at MSE HQ, need to get back in their box.

You can not just demand, that business change their charging structure to suit.

MSE demands Tesco charges 50p for milk

MSE demands NCP do not charge more than £3 a day

....

Come on now MSE, get a grip!

MSE

Pollycat

Credit-Crunched wrote: »

I travel a lot, between Uk and Europe, many time a mother / father has asked to swap seats so they can sit next to their child.

Obviously, I agree without any fuss, as most rational people would.

I think people at MSE HQ, need to get back in their box.

You can not just demand, that business change their charging structure to suit.

MSE demands Tesco charges 50p for milk

MSE demands NCP do not charge more than £3 a day

....

Come on now MSE, get a grip!

MSE

Would you agree to change seats if you had paid to sit with the people you are travelling with and were asked to change your seat by someone who hadn't paid for that?

Credit-Crunched

Pollycat wrote: »

Would you agree to change seats if you had paid to sit with the people you are travelling with and were asked to change your seat by someone who hadn't paid for that?

If I was particularly fussy who I sat next to, and wanted to ensure that it was possible, I would pay a premium for that. If I was not fussed, I would not pay a premium, and sit where I was told.

In reality, how often are people split up? Airlines are generally very accommodating, either check in on line early, or get to the airport early.

In answer to your question, as an adult if I could see a mother / child were getting distressed as they could not sit together, and I had paid to sit next to a friend / other half, Yes I would move. I would like to think that someone else would do the same for my sister and niece's.

brewerdave

Pollycat wrote: »

Would you agree to change seats if you had paid to sit with the people you are travelling with and were asked to change your seat by someone who hadn't paid for that?

...I certainly wouldn't ! :mad:

Anyway this topic has been discussed to death in the past on Trip Advisor -the general consensus was that the only way to satisfy the family bookers was to charge/allow everyone to choose a seat at the time of booking -and that won't work for last minute group bookers who are almost guaranteed to be spread around the cabin, whether they are a family or not. The alternative is to not allow advance seat booking at all and leave it to the airline to allocate!!

brewerdave

Credit-Crunched wrote: »

In reality, how often are people split up? Airlines are generally very accommodating, either check in on line early, or get to the airport early.

.

Quite often on charter airlines -with an airline like Thomson the seats are allocated ~24 hours before the flight (those that haven't booked) so ,in theory, getting to the airport/check in early ,doesn't help. There are quite often 3 seats together , so with couples travelling there are often odd seats scattered around the cabin.

Pollycat

Credit-Crunched wrote: »

If I was particularly fussy who I sat next to, and wanted to ensure that it was possible, I would pay a premium for that. If I was not fussed, I would not pay a premium, and sit where I was told.

In reality, how often are people split up? Airlines are generally very accommodating, either check in on line early, or get to the airport early.

In answer to your question, as an adult if I could see a mother / child were getting distressed as they could not sit together, and I had paid to sit next to a friend / other half, Yes I would move. I would like to think that someone else would do the same for my sister and niece's.

If sitting separately would cause such distress and paying to sit together was a chargeable extra, they should have paid to ensure they wouldn't be caused distress.

We don't pay to sit together when flying short-haul but do pay to choose our specific seats when flying long-haul.
As such I would not move for someone who hadn't paid and just expected to be accommodated.

On the old Thomas Cook A330 planes which were configured 3-3-3, we used to book seats one behind the other in the central section e.g. 12D & 13D.
As the other 2 seats were usually occupied by couples, it meant that we could get up without disturbing anyone and could sleep without being disturbed.
Also, I could recline my seat knowing that my OH wouldn't be kicking the back of my seat throughout the journey.

One flight we found ourselves the only occupants in both rows.
Cabin crew asked if we were travelling together (I think they were looking to move some people who weren't happy with their seats - obviously they hadn't bothered/wanted to pay to reserve their seats) and I said we were but we had booked those specific seats and explained why.
She said that was fine & left us there.

sinizterguy

KTF wrote: »

The 'seating together' option is pure profit for the airlines.

I don't know of anyone who has checked in as a group and then found themselves scattered across the cabin by the check in system.

My brother and his wife - Sat at two ends of the plane on a long-haul trip.

No kids.

KTF

sinizterguy wrote: »

No kids.

That will be why then as an airline wont put a kid on its own away from a parent.

sinizterguy

KTF wrote: »

That will be why then as an airline wont put a kid on its own away from a parent.

But they can and will put the two parents away from each other.

They only guarantee one parent will sit with one kid.

Had that happen to a friend.

Wife and Kid1 together, Husband and kid2 elsewhere.

Pollycat

KTF wrote: »

That will be why then as an airline wont put a kid on its own away from a parent.

This thread says differently:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5191900

2 adults & 4 year old not sat together.

This is what CAA say:

Families, children and infants
The seating of children close by their parents or guardians should be the aim of airline seat allocation procedures for family groups and large parties of children.
Young children and infants who are accompanied by adults, should ideally be seated in the same seat row as the adult. 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. This is because the speed of an emergency evacuation may be affected by adults trying to reach their children.
Whenever a number of infants and children are travelling together the airline should make every effort to ensure that they can be readily supervised by the responsible accompanying adults.

'Should be' and 'ideally' are not the same as 'must be'.