MSE News: 'Family tax': Dad's outrage as Ryanair tries to seat 3yo away from family

tain

Just to be clear - I don't even have kids, and by making parents pay extra for allocated seating makes my flights cheaper! But I'm playing devil's advocate here as I'm a trained H&S professional, and I think it's a very clear breach of the law. I get email updates daily from the HSE whereby organisations are getting fined massive sums as they've failed in their risk assessments. I just hope a child doesn't need to be seriously injured or die in order for action to be taken.

Similarly - I'm not saying the charges can't still stand. But do the airlines ask what allergies the child has? What questions do they ask about the child's temperament and needs? Do they have a childcare qualification like you'd expect a childminder or nursery nurse to have? What processes are in place to show they're mitigating the risks, and why haven't these been provided to parents affected? If all of this is satisfied, then they're free to continue what they're doing.

NFH

tain wrote: »

In the UK it is illegal to make someone pay for safety, and being safe is part of our human rights.

Which law makes it illegal to charge someone for safety? You're making this up. For example, plenty of car manufacturers sell optional safety equipment that is over and above the legal minimum. Similarly, consumers are made to pay for motorcycle helmets. I don't see any mention of safety in the European Convention on Human Rights either, except that governments may do certain things in the interests of public safety (different topic).

Whilst I agree with your objection to families being surcharged to sit together, you are misleading others by saying things that aren't true. If you're going to quote "the law", please quote specific legislation or guidelines only, preferably with a link (as you helpfully did in a later post), otherwise you dilute and harm our overall argument against these unfair surcharges.

duchy

tain wrote: »

IMO this all comes down to a single question: Is it safe for a two year old child to sit on their own on a flight?

I believe it is fundamentally unsafe for a two year old to not have a parent/guardian with them on a flight. In the UK it is illegal to make someone pay for safety, and being safe is part of our human rights. So in my opinion, an airline is breaching the law when they levy a charge that would inadvertently create an unsafe situation.

Could Ryanair charge you an extra fiver to ensure your flight didn't have people smoking cigarettes on it?

In my mind as a parent it was MY responsibility to ensure my child was safe - if that meant I bought a better quality car seat than the cheap one available in the market then that was simply one of the costs of responsible parenthood. This is no different.

Some parents are just cheap when it comes to the comfort and safety of their children -and dressing it up as anything else is just nonsense.

NFH

duchy wrote: »

In my mind as a parent it was MY responsibility to ensure my child was safe - if that meant I bought a better quality car seat than the cheap one available in the market then that was simply one of the costs of responsible parenthood. This is no different.

On the contrary, it is very different. Ryanair deliberately scatters families around the aircraft if they do not pay the surcharge to sit together. Based on my own anecdotal experience with Ryanair, I believe that passengers who check in online with only one passenger per booking are seated sequentially throughout the aircraft. Multiple passengers under one booking are deliberately scattered around the aircraft in order to encourage them to pay surcharges, even if some of those passengers are children. This breaches the above-quoted CAA guidelines.

tain

NFH wrote: »

Which law makes it illegal to charge someone for safety? You're making this up. For example, plenty of car manufacturers sell optional safety equipment that is over and above the legal minimum. Similarly, consumers are made to pay for motorcycle helmets. I don't see any mention of safety in the European Convention on Human Rights either, except that governments may do certain things in the interests of public safety (different topic).

Whilst I agree with your objection to families being surcharged to sit together, you are misleading others by saying things that aren't true. If you're going to quote "the law", please quote specific legislation or guidelines only, preferably with a link (as you helpfully did in a later post), otherwise you dilute and harm our overall argument against these unfair surcharges.

You're not asking the right question there. You're looking for an explicit piece of law that states 'you cannot charge money for a safety device', but that's not what I've been saying here. There is no need for legislation to state that, as by its very nature it's implied.

I'm saying that by its very nature, you can't charge for safety. Because what is the alternative? The second the airline knowingly allows an unsafe situation to occur, they're breaking the law. The duty of care is with the airline, not with the parent. The airline can't shirk their legal responsibilities because a payment wasn't made.

Your examples are poor. If I voluntarily engage in a risky act, where the risks are inherent in the act, then it is assumed that I will have accepted the risks. Just like a footballer can't sue his team if he gets injured - the possibility of injury is inherent in playing football.

In this case though, the airline is creating an unsafe environment unless a charge is paid. That is certainly not an assumed part of buying a plane ticket, and would never hold up in law should something untoward happen.

tain

duchy wrote: »

In my mind as a parent it was MY responsibility to ensure my child was safe - if that meant I bought a better quality car seat than the cheap one available in the market then that was simply one of the costs of responsible parenthood. This is no different.

Some parents are just cheap when it comes to the comfort and safety of their children -and dressing it up as anything else is just nonsense.

Again this is not the same at all.

This isn't an upgrade to safety. It's taking a safe situation, making it unsafe, then charging a levy on top to make it safe again.

NFH

tain wrote: »

I'm saying that by its very nature, you can't charge for safety.

A business can charge for safety, but only where it is over and above the minimum required by law or regulations.

tain wrote: »

The second the airline knowingly allows an unsafe situation to occur, they're breaking the law.

Which law? Don't confuse "the law" as you put it with CAA rules and guidelines.

tain

Would McDonald's be allowed to serve up two sets of chicken nuggets - one that is more expensive and has been temperature probed to ensure it's free from salmonella, and one where they haven't got a clue?

Could they even go as far as saying that all their nuggets have been temperature probed, some are safe some aren't, and you can only find out for certain if yours are ok for an extra quid? And could they say all this after you'd already paid for your chicken nuggets?

tain

NFH wrote: »

A business can charge for safety, but only where it is over and above the minimum required by law or regulations.


Which law? Don't confuse "the law" as you put it with CAA rules and guidelines.

I've said about 100 times. The Health and Safety at Work Act - the Act that puts the duty of care on the airlines. By law they have to provide as far as reasonably practicable a safe environment for anyone who comes into contact with their business. And keeping parents and children together is quite clearly as far as reasonably practicable.

I can't see a situation where a business can charge for safety. If they've done a risk assessment and identified hazards, then any scenario whereby someone chooses not to pay the charge will instantly fail their risk assessment and can't proceed. It's a logic equation, not a statement in law.

tain

NFH wrote: »

A business can charge for safety, but only where it is over and above the minimum required by law or regulations.


Which law? Don't confuse "the law" as you put it with CAA rules and guidelines.

Do you work in health and safety? It doesn't sound like you do as you expect our H&S laws to be prescriptive, eg 'do this, don't do that, you can do this you can't do that'.

Our laws are very vague and expect businesses to do as much as they can to be safe. Just proving you had done the minimum 'by law' or 'by industry guidelines' would never stand up in court, because our health and safety laws are compiled in such a way as to ensure they're not limiting 'just to the bare minimum'.

If something was to happen to a child who had been separated from their parent on a flight, then it would be entirely on the airline to prove they had done everything that was reasonable to prevent it. Doing nothing is quite clearly not everything. Putting up barriers to health and safety is not everything, nor reasonable.


To put it another way: how can any airline prove that putting parents with their children on flights is beyond reasonably practicable? It's actually an effort to not do this (as mentioned before).