2 Adults 2 Children No seat reservation

[DisBloke]

Currently looking at flights on a budget.

We're 2 adults and 2 children (will be 10 and 7), if we don't book seats to save money could we be split so the kids are on their own? Are there some legalities which would mean that we would at least have to be 2 lots of 2 seats together or could they dot us around the aircraft?

Paul.

[Tinkerbell]

My understanding is they can split you as a family,

Young children and infants who are accompanied by adults should ideally be seated in the same seat row as the adult. 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

See more...

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caa/passengers/on-b...ng-allocation/

[sparkles18]

If flying with BA with children 11 and under they will do their very best to seat you together and your seats are assigned 5-6 days before your flight.

[Sussex Bantam]

Depends on your airline - BA have a stated policy of seating families together as sparkles18 says. It doesn't always work but usually is ok. Other airlines don't have such a policy

There has been some bad press recently about airlines actively splitting groups up to "punish" passengers who don't reserve seats but this is speculation and hasn't been proven.

[toonarmani]

"Should" be together (either a group or 1 per adult), however no guarantee. BA usually put you together from past experience but again no guarantee.

Whereas Delta split us up across around 20 rows one year (internal US flight after we couldn't sort seats before travel) and youngest was 6 at the time (they said anyone over 5 can fly alone).

[Mrs Valentine]

It is a lot of money but if you are worried that you wont like to be split up, i'd book seats. Then you can relax and not worry right up to check in.
If you do think you wouldn't mind being apart if it happens, then don't book.
All I say to everyone is, don't book and then moan that you are not together or expect someone else to move to accommodate you once on the flight. (We have had this happen, people make you feel guilty even when we had booked our seats). I'm not saying you would but it was just something that happened to us once.

[Guest]

It's not one per adult though so you could end up with one of you with both kids and the other at the other end of the plane.

Equally it's a guideline only so whilst usually it won't happen it could.

Honestly in the scheme of things the seat reservation cost is not the expensive part of a Florida holiday, whilst I don't, if you are worried about it (which you are or you wouldn't ask the question) you will save yourself a lot of stress and heartache just paying for the seats and accepting whilst not nice it's just part of the whole process

[Procrastinator]

Find the policy for the airline you are thinking of flying with. Decide if you are ok with it as a worst case scenario. The BA policy is below:

"If you don’t choose your seats in advance, we’ll do our best to seat your family together a few days before your flight departs, from the limited selection of seats available. This might result in your family being split over different rows or across the aisle, however we will make sure each child under 12 is seated with an adult from your booking. Anyone over 12 years is treated as an adult in our system, so we may seat them separately."

I don think it unreasonable to assume "seated with" means next to and would argue that point with them if they didnt sit my 3 year old next to me.

But you have to decide if you are happy with that policy.

I check our flights every couple of weeks at the mo. Currently there are about 30 empty window seats/rows. If that number start dissapearing fast i will book and pay as we want a window. But i reckon it will be fine and i dont have to waste the £200 ish.

[weeleighluigi]

Originally Posted by Guest

It's not one per adult though so you could end up with one of you with both kids and the other at the other end of the plane.

Equally it's a guideline only so whilst usually it won't happen it could.

Honestly in the scheme of things the seat reservation cost is not the expensive part of a Florida holiday, whilst I don't, if you are worried about it (which you are or you wouldn't ask the question) you will save yourself a lot of stress and heartache just paying for the seats and accepting whilst not nice it's just part of the whole process

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As a family of 5, our seats booked for both flights would have cost £232

That's a lot of money, I don't care what anyone says! And for some on a budget it may mean the difference of going or not going. Those are economy seats by the way... just plain old row 18 a,c,d,e and f.
I know others factor the cost into their holiday before they start and so on, but no one can say that's cheap just to get seats together.

Op, it depends on your airline. We never book seats and are always sat together, I don't ever demand seats together, we have always been allocated as soon as check in opens. I know thomson hold at least 2 rows of seats for this reason.
I would also never expect anyone to move for me if I didn't pay to book my seats. I would also move if it meant a small child was able to sit next to their parent.

I luckily caught the Thomas Cook glitch a while ago when seats were free to book, I can honestly say, on the 8 holidays I have been on, in the past 6 years, flights to and from, we have always been sat together and I have never paid for seats.

[Guest]

Don't get me wrong weeleighluigi like you we've never paid to sit together and have never been split up (not even on ryanair) and we do at least one return flight every two months as a family.

My point was more that if it is going to be a stress creating situation then even at 200 pounds it would be worth it to not tarnish the enjoyment of the rest of the holiday

As I've said before our kids where doing unaccompanied flights from about the age of 7 so they really couldn't care less if we sat by them or not, in fact I think they'd prefer we didn't