In fairness though some of one families may not have paid for allocated seating. If people want seats all together then they need to pay for it.
In my days as crew some people would demand the aircraft be moved to sit them all together but getting an adult with the child(ren) was the priority, not getting the other adult, their mate, their mate's wife and their kids all sat in one big group. However you always have to give people the benefit of the doubt as they may have checked in last or suitable seats may not have been available since the time of purchase.
Working at an airline that had free seating was just as bad as there was always a family come on last demanding seats together and again it was not possible to accommodate their preferences, however their needs were always met by having at least one adult say with the children or across the 18" wide aisle (which people would not be happy with but it exceeded the requirement of having children within one row of their responsible adult.
Last edited by fa2fi; 13th Jun 2014 at 15:10.