Easy Jet - seating arrangements

[CessnaCJM]

I am not sure if this has been discussed before but whilst travelling on an EasyJet flight recently I noticed that only people with Children under 5 years old were invited to board first

On boarding the flight I noticed a number of children 6-14 who were seperated from their parents and in some cases were distraught, some displaced from their parents thoughout the flight.

The issue for me is this - if there were a serious problem with the aircraft which necessitated an evacuation of the aircraft i.e. cabin fire etc., I just wonder how many parents would actually try to get to their children, rather than immediately going to the emergency exit of the aircraft causing even more chaos in the cabin, and preventing a fast evacuation of the aircraft.

I can understand the rationale for not allocating seats, but I do think that potentially safety is potentially being compromised here, and that all parents travelling with children under the age of say 14 should be allocated seats with them.

Anyone any thoughts on this - or am I just being overly concerned?

[turbocharged]

I travelled on an Iberian flight 25 years ago with my wife and 4 year old. Free seating. The 3 of us were distributed around the cabin. Not a new problem. On legacy carriers it's not uncommon for the cabin crew to then have to start reshuffling. Not feasible on a quick turn around. Its actually a good example of operational risk generated by company business model.

In reality, if parents were concerned about distressed children then they, themselves, could ask people to move.

There is an apocryphal (possibly) tale of a mid-east carrier that had an on-ground evacuation. The duty free came down the slides but 2 infants were left on board. From my own experience, I was once caught up in a crush at a football match. I had my son with me who was about 11 at the time. I'm a 6ft tall rugby player. I simply could not keep hold of my son and he got swept away. Moment's later some guy about 10 feet away called to me, holding my son up. He'd seen what was happening and managed to get to my son as he was carried by. I'd hope something similar might happen if the poo hit the fan on an aircraft.

[IGh]

There were a few cases, during the last few decades, of child abuse of a lone-seated child.

Various threat-mitigation practices were suggested (FA's might be told to keep the cabin-lights BRIGHT during the long night flight). Fa's might have more information on this subject.

[PA28pilot]

Families get split up quite regularly; your safety concerns are very valid CessnaCJM. However, if the cabin crew are informed, they will always do their best to move people around. Not an easy job, when the vast majority of passengers won't give up their hard-won seat for anything - even on a short domestic flight! Luckily there is usually someone willing to help them out, but it always causes a delay.

I think it's fair to say that most front-line crews dream of the day that pre-assigned seating comes to the airline, but will the bosses listen? :rolleyes:
"Low cost with care and convenience" is our motto. I don't think we do a bad job in most areas but there's certainly nothing caring or convenient about the free-for-all boarding process.

[Agaricus bisporus]

What is it with the arrogance of parents that makes them think that because they are polluting the earth with their scuzzy badly behaved brats they somehow have a right to have the world revolve around them when it comes to flying? If they are too lazy or stupid to arrive in time then they can dam well sit where there is space like the rest of us, or book an airline with allocated seating. If the child is interfered with it is probably some poor sod trying to instil some discipline in the little brute and get some peace and quiet.

The rest of us have to pay good money for the priviledge of boarding ahead of the queue yet still have to suffer the appalling behaviour of the urchins on board.

I'd ban the lot of them.

;)

[CessnaCJM]

I was actually asking for serious views on this, rather than the last comments:ugh:

I agree the cabin staff do an excellent job in trying to get passengers to move etc., indeed on the flight that prompted this it was the passengers who were unhelpful in this repect and were giving the cabin crew a bit of a rough ride.

I hadnt particularly thought of the implications of molestation of minors by other passengers - it would be interesting to see the outcome of that in a court of law if a low cost airline could be seen as being complicit due to their seating rules!

The interest for me is that in the event of a crash I would not want my (or others) exit to take any longer than necessary due to the chaos caused by unnecessary movement within the cabin due to this approach to seating.

Might be an interesting one for a newspaper to take up - particularly as we all live in both a litigious and health and safety aware world.

After all does this practice really add to the health and safety of its passengers:confused:

[alamel]

From the CAA website

Seating: Allocation | Information for Passengers | CAA (http://www.caa.co.uk/default.aspx?catid=1770&pagetype=90&pageid=9855)

"CAA guidelines ask airlines to develop procedures for the seat allocation of family groups, particularly when a group includes children. It is probable that family group members would seek each other out should an emergency evacuation be required, an action that could adversely affect the passenger flow rates towards emergency exits and might seriously affect the outcome of an evacuation.
Additionally, children and infants should be seated where they can be adequately supervised by an accompanying adult in the event of turbulence or a decompression in the cabin.
Airlines procedures should take into account the following factors:
Children, accompanied by adults, should ideally be seated in the same seat row as the adult. In wide-bodied aircraft, 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.
Seat allocation procedures for family groups and suitable seating arrangements for large parties of children should reflect the above criteria.
Whenever small numbers of infants and children are travelling together, the airline should make every effort to ensure that they are allocated seats where they can be readily supervised by the responsible accompanying adult in both normal and abnormal conditions."

[Getoutofmygalley]

As an easyJet Senior Cabin Crew Member, I always do my absolute very best to ensure that all parents get seated with their children. Unfortunately the company now regard parents as being an income stream "What, you can't find a seat for you and your child to sit together? Well next time purchase Speedy Boarding, or better still Speedy Boarding Plus :yuk:"

If a flight is to a holiday destination and it is booked as full, I break the companies rules on boarding PA's (don't get me started on the pathetic rules the useless management have introduced on PA's) and I request that those pax travelling ALONE when they take a seat to please not leave the centre seat empty as there will be lots of families travelling with children who do need to be seated by their children for safety purposes. I point out that before the aircraft can depart all parents will be needed to be with their children and thank all pax for their co-operating in ensuring a speedy departure - it usually works!

Also, when pax board and the cabin is starting to get full, if a family comes on I always tell them to head immediately to the rear and try to find seats, and if they struggle to find seats with their children to immediately ask a member of crew to assist them.

For your information, the company is getting quite picky with crew (ala Ryanair) when it comes to delays and the company are starting to bollock cabin crew for delays that can be attributed to the cabin crew (i.e. pax slow to settle, which is usually because they are trying to find seats together, incorrect head count - usually caused by pax constantly moving around the cabin when the SCCM is trying to count everyone onboard) so some crew may seem a bit unhelpful due to the fact that they are scared of getting bollockings from management for fear of the aircraft not pushing back ontime.

I personally would love it if ALL pax would contact easyJet and say "Regardless of what you, the management of the company think, passengers, those people that generate the income that keep the company running and you lot in your jobs would be happier to fly with you if you would introduce allocated seating".

Infact, feel free to cut and paste that entire section above into an email and send it direct to the Chief Executive of easyJet, Andy Harrison and let him know what you think - [email protected]

I have had enough of easyJet, the company has gone down hill over the last few months (although pax may feel it's been a longer period than that) and I will be handing in my notice fairly soon. But when I go, Andy Harrison will be receiving a very personal email from me, telling him the truth about the company and what the passengers really want and how he and his team have lost the way big time when it comes to running this company. :sad:

[judge11]

'I can understand the rationale for not allocating seats' - would you care to explain it because I can see no rationale behind it.

All 'free seating' has achieved is to create a thoroughly unpleasant 'passenger experience' by introducing the free-for-all-rush herd mentality and an excuse for certain airlines to profit from laughable 'priority boarding' scams. Brainwashing of SLF has become so complete that I have witnessed queuing at the gate up to an hour before departure even though seats have been allocated.

So, a rationale explainantion, please.

[Gary Lager]

It gives passengers an incentive to board the aircraft quickly. If they have pre-allocated seats then (rightly or wrongly) they can take their time and board the aircraft at the last minute, causing delays while they are waited for/called for/baggage offloaded because they got carried away in duty-free. I have worked for easyJet and airlines with pre-allocated seating.

It is an absolute fact that the frequency of delays caused by waiting for passengers is negligible in easyJet compared to my previous employers (large UK airlines). Speeding up turnrounds means more time available to fly, which means more economical use of aircraft, which means lower fares & greater profitability. Even the delays caused by re-seating families etc do not come close to those which would be experienced if pax no longer had the same incentive to get on board. The same effect can be observed if pax walk to the aircfraft and it is raining. It's amazing how quickly the aircraft can be boarded!

Like it or not, that is the rationale.

If passengers cannot behave politely whilst queuing for their seat, that is a problem of manners and/or endemic of society generally, not the airline. Similarly if passengers decide to get tanked up before flying and cause trouble on the flight, it is not the airline's fault if they cannot behave responsibly.

Want pre-allocated seating more than cheap fares? Why not fly with our competitors? Apparently 30million+ pax this year actually decided that free-seating wasn't all that bad....

[CessnaCJM]

That is exactly what I have done - my family have just gone back to Portugal (wife and two boys under 9 years) and I have gone to BA precisely for that reason, and will from now on.

Will I be the only one voting with my feet - the more that Passengers are treated like cattle (the speedy boarding only works if you can force your way through to the front of the 'scrum' first).

I do find it amazing that a large airline can 'virtually ignore' CAA guidelines on family seating and get away with it - more for the journo's?

I will certainly be e mailing the Chief Exec., but I guess he will not reply truthfully as admitting that they are ignoring safety guidlines (or at least stretching them to suit the business model) would not be good PR for Easy Jet

30m people may fly on the airline, but it is also true that can quickly change if they think that their families safety is being compromised. I am just not sure that many people actually think about the safety issues of all this - they just currently see it as an inconvenience.

EJ cabin crew - just keep smiling!:)

[turbocharged]

Free-seating pre-dates LCCs. See my post about Iberian in 1981. SAS on internal flights 10 years ago also; it's not new. I know Ryanair argued that when they had to rent every item of ground equipment, including the boarding pass machine at check-in - then it saved money to just not bother.

Free-seating does not create an unpleasant passenger boarding experience ... passengers do that themselves.

[judge11]

'Apparently 30million+ pax this year actually decided that free-seating wasn't all that bad....'

Whilst many of them would probably be prepared to be accommodated in a cattle pen slung under the wing to get to their stag party for peanuts, I would sugest that a great many of your passengers would like to be treated with a little more respect and decency and get an allocated seat. I have flown 'loco' when forced and the total experience, in the main, has been quite unedifying.

The loco operators have gone some way to encourage, if not be complicit, in the decline in manners and/or endemic of society generally by promoting this herd/something for nothing mentality that apparently holds some kind of appeal (or appears as nothing out of the ordinary) for so many of their passengers, a sad reflection in itself.

I beleive that the worm is slowly turning and the more discerning are going to seek a higher standard of service and be prepared to pay the extra for it.

[turbocharged]

The 'worm' has always had the option of paying for more expensive transportation and frequent travelers know that 'legacy' carriers can sometimes be cheaper than LCCs - if you shop around.

Those worms that are only now turning are probably the ones that are in the running for Darwin Awards.

[dicksorchard]

CessnaCJM (http://www.pprune.org/members/202808-cessnacjm) great post - interesting & raising some valid querys concerning seating issues with budjet airlines & family safety.

I personally fly both Ryanair & Easyjet and passengers can purchase priority/ speedy boarding for an extra fee .

Or if you are checking in online & taking on hand luggage only you get it free .

If you want to avoid the scrum to get a seat & don't want to end up seperated from your loved ones then buy it as an add on or travel with cabin baggage only.

I usually travel light with just a small bag in which i can have up to 10kg of luggage so if onboard a ryanair i am one of the priveledged who get free priority boarding .

If travelling alone with my grandson i always have to purchase priority boarding as i have to check in his pushchair.

When travelling in a group with a small child / children i just ensure when booking the flights that i do 2 seperate bookings .

This way it keeps the costs down and i know that at least one group of us will get free priority boarding and be able to save seats for those that don't .

Also be aware the the flight booking systems can actually cheat you out of cheaper fares.

example = I have just purchased 5 lights to Reus rtn with Ryanair .
these flights where advertised at an incredible £1 each way no tax's !

The system was saying that there where 5 seats from Liverpool out at £1 but the return from Reus was showing 5 seats at £12.99 plus tax .

So i booked the 5 flights out one way = £5

and on the return reduced the seats needed one by one untill the system showed a fare at the advertised price of a £1 = 3 seats where available at that price so i booked those and that left the next 2 seats at £12.99 so i booked those .

I would have had to pay £12.99 plus tax from reus for 5 people if i booked the flights all together ? Which would have come to £148 but because i seperated the bookings i paid £66 !

Sometimes its cheaper to do the bookings in seperate groups .

There are lots of ways of manipulating the booking & priority/ speedy & boarding procedures to benefit familys to ensure that members of the same group can sit next to each other and get a much cheaper deal .

However i must give the Cabin crew the utmost respect as they work tirelessly to get familys seated together . I have seen children seperated from their parents on many occaisions & the crew have always got some one to help re-arrange ie give up the seating so as children & parents can be together & not get distressed so usually there are no complaints & everyone is happy .

a great thread throwing up issues that can 7 do effect all of us when travelling .

[CessnaCJM]

I dont disagree that one can work to ensure that you can be seated with your own family - isnt part of the issue that for those that do not in the event of an evactuation they may be the ones getting in your way to the exit trying to get to their children first?

Here is the e mail that I sent to Andy Harrison and the reply

'I wonder whether you can help me.
Having booked a number of flights of late with EasyJet particularly during the school holiday season, I have become increasingly concerned about the way that the current non allocation of seating to families with children (up to the age of say 14 or 15 years) would affect the evacuation of an aircraft in the event of an emergency.
As I understand it, only children accompanied to the age of 5 years have the 'almost guaranteed' opportunity to sit together as they can board first on your flights. Although this does mean that they have to force their way to the front of the 'scrum' which appears to take place around your boarding gates at certain airports.
When travelling recently I was concerned that a number of families were split up (despite the best efforts of the cabin crew) on the flight during the on aircraft boarding process - some of these children appeared to be very young and some distraught.
In the event of an emergency evacuation of the aircraft at a critcal phase of the flight, is it not likely that the parents/guardian of children travelling would try to find their children first in the cabin before evacuating the aircraft causing potential further delay and confusion/chaos in the evacuation for fellow passengers.
Further, if could be proved that there was a delay due to this and it resulted in unnecessary death could this policy not be construed as EasyJet being complicit in, perhaps, manslaughter and the senior executives being personally liable?
I am also concerned that if a child on board a flight were molested by a fellow passenger that they were forced to sit next to due to this policy that again you would be both professionally and personally liable for negligence in your responsibilities any child travelling with you?
I would be very interested in your views on this - I for one have now taken the step of not allowing my family to travel on your airline (I have two boys under 9 years) and have recently booked another trip on BA to alleviate this issue for my family.'

The reply

'Thank you for your feedback, Please be assured, we have strict
guidelines that control how children are seated on the aircraft. I have
described these below for you.
Prior to boarding the aircraft the initial responsibility is owned by
the Ground Operations department, staff working for this department will
ensure that we pre-board people with children that are 5 years old and
under ahead of the Boarding Groups A & B. As long as these people
identify themselves and are at the gate on time.
Once on-board the aircraft the responsibility lies with the cabin crew.
The procedures that cabin crew follow complies with CAA guidance in
Chapter 32 Section 7 of CAP768 "Guidance Material for Operators".
The procedures state that ideally infants and young children will be
seated in the same seat row as the accompanying adult and the minimum
acceptable is for them to be seated no more than one row away from an
accompanying adult.
If a family group are boarded late for whatever reason, the issue
obviously becomes slightly more complex as people get comfortable in
their seats. The cabin crew are of course aware of their
responsibilities regarding this situation and will rearrange passengers
to comply with company policy.
Ultimately if the cabin crew are unsuccessful in reseating people to
accommodate the requirements of the CAA Guidance material then the
Captain would become involved and exercise his or her authority to
ensure that the correct outcome is obtained.'

I answered as follows, and am awaiting a reply

'
Thank you for your reply, however in practice this doesnt work. At airports where the flow of passengers at an airport cannot be strictly controlled into Groups as you suggest i.e. where passengers are transported to the aircraft passengers from the departure gate to the aircraft in one perhaps two busses there is currently a 'free for all' with passengers running to board pushing families out of the way.
Once seated in practice some passengers do not give up their seats willingly and as the cabin crew are under pressure to ensure that the passengers are seated for a speedy turnaround and departure there is only limited time do do this and again in practice some of the other passengers become almost abusive to passengers with children, and therefore the guidelines as laid down by the CAA cannot be followed.
I do not believe that the current policy is sufficient to absolve the EasyJet managers from their safety responsibilities to passengers unless this is review to take into account these issues, and therefore will take the opportunity write to the CAA head of Flight Safety for clarification on this.
Can you please also give me your thoughts on the potential of molestation of a minor on one of your aircraft due to this policy'

Sorry for the length of this but I thought you might all be interested!

[Getoutofmygalley]

The easyJet operations manual for Cabin Crew states the following:

Seat Allocation for Family Groups
The separation of family groups, especially children, may lead to problems in emergency situations. During emergency evacuations, group members separated from other members of the family or party might seek each other out during the evacuation process. Such actions could have an adverse effect on passenger flow rates towards emergency exits and might seriously affect the outcome of an evacuation. Additionally, infants and young children would need assistance from adults in the donning of oxygen masks during decompression.

As a result children should ideally be seated in the same seat row as the accompanying adult. Where this is not possible, children should be separated by no more than one seat row from accompanying adults.

Nowhere does it say for the cabin crew to go get the Captain involved.

Funny though how the company is washing it's hands of the legal responsibilites of the carrier by saying that once onboard the responsibility lies with the cabin crew.

Shame on you Andy, you have gone even further down in my estimation that I thought it would be humanly possible.

Now, I do believe that if the cabin crew did have a problem getting pax to move from their already chosen seat to another, most of the easyJet Captains would offer assistance - however I do know quite a few that are old school who have particular reputations (LGW crew will know several names that are currently going through my head) who would just yell at the SCCM to "sort it out, do their job and hurry up" and attribute the delay as a delay code of 66 (Late cabin crew boarding - which is used when pax are slow to settle) and the SCCM will then get a bollocking for the delay.

The sooner I write out my resignation letter the better! :*

[CessnaCJM]

Just to be clear the reply was from Graeme MacLeod for EasyJet who Andy Harrison sent my e mail to for answering as 'he is the expert in this area' - sorry if I mislead anyone

[d&b]

For your information, I have recently flown with Easyjet and was a bit worried about the non allocation of seating as I was travelling with three children. We were not late in checking in, my kids do not misbehave on flights and we arrrived in the departure lounge with plenty of time to spare. However,we were almost last to board and got seperated from each other due to all the "grown ups" pushing their way through.Thankfully we managed to sit across the aisles from each other my husband with two and me with one. Perfect.
I am taking your comments with the contempt they deserve. Please don't tar all families with the same brush.

[Getoutofmygalley]

sorry if I mislead anyone

No need to apologise CessnaCJM - it doesn't matter who replied, the problem is that management think they can pass off their legal responsibilities to the cabin crew when really the company should have robust procedures in place to stop these kind of problems from arising. And the simplest way of doing that is to have allocated seating.

It's a well known fact that at certain outstations the ground staff couldn't give a flying fig about boarding procedures and will just send pax down in any order that they chose.

I had an incident not to long ago where the aircraft was running late, the gate stuff decided to not follow the correct boarding order and just sent everyone in a free for all. When I tackled the despatcher, their response was "you are late, therefore we send pax all together to get you away on time", my response was "And what about the pax who all complained for having paid for speedy boarding who didn't get to come down first? or the wheelchair pax who didn't get pre-boarded and are now seated in the middle of the cabin instead of close to an emergency exit?". I reported the outstation and despatcher on my flight exception report (the SCCM's flight paperwork) and as usual nothing happened, I requested feedback and none was provided.

It might be interesting to see what reply you would get from easyJet if you wrote back asking why they don't pre-board all under 12's to comply outright with CAA guidelines (or under 14's as easyJet policy is no unaccompanied minors under 14 years of age) - I bet you wouldn't even get a reply (because the only reply they could truthfully give would be "because we would be cutting off a vital source of profit as Speedy Boarding revenue would go down").

[CessnaCJM]

I have just spoken to the CAA flight safety department and they said that if I were of the view that EasyJet (EJ) were not complying with the guidelines laid down by the CAA or indeed within their (EJ's) own CC procedures manual then I should e mail [email protected] naming dates/times of instances observed etc and she would take this up with the CAA EJ inspector.

The guidelines given verbally to me by the CAA were similar to that quoted by GetoutofmyGalley from the EJ ops manual for cabin crew (no surprise there then!)

It is also the same as given to me in a direct quote from CAP 762 by Graeme Macleod in his e mail reply to my original question of them (err - again no surprise)

There is (from the information I obtained from the CAA) no reference in CAP 762 to the duty of care to minors seperated from their parents/guardians if they operated outside of the CAA guideline in the case of potential molestation by fellow passengers (although I am not sure that you could include this?)


Not sure where this takes us - except of course that we know its happening, but I will be writing to the CAA on this formally as the more I have taken 'counsel' in this forum the more I think that EJ are taking unnecessary risk with passengers in the event of an evacuation of the cabin due to their boarding policies and also not exercising a proper duty of care to minors travelling with them

If anyone else has instances of this I would suggest that they also e mail the CAA at the above address