Reserved Seating Allocation and Minors
 

Was traveling with the family a few weeks ago and got an interesting seating allocation.

Two adults, two children traveling on a 737-800, so 3-3 seating. The airline allocated us three seats together and then a separate one. Fair enough.

What got me though was that the names on the boarding cards meant that the separate seat was allocated to the six-year-old, which meant there was no legal way we could sit in the seats allocated to us. It's not difficult to swap the seats between the group, and put one of the adults in the separate seat, so this isn't the biggest issue in the world.

Am I overreacting in being bothered by this?

It's not a big deal as you say, you could change seats so that an adult was separate from the rest of the group.
The crew on-board would make sure you where all seated together if it was a single adult and two children travelling.

Er, I don't think you are doing anything illegal by switching within your group or even with another passenger.

Reservations systems (which handle bookings, passenger names, ages, etc. and Departure Control systems (which handle seat allocation and other things) are often not that closely linked. While there is some crossover their integration certainly isn't perfect. Some LCCs, who've recently moved to assigned seating, have had to add this functionality on top of a basic reservations system. It likely is going to be a learning curve until they achieve perfection. :hmm:

Take their assignments to be 'suggestions' and seat yourselves where it makes sense to.

In very rare cases you may find that the crew will not want you to move too much in the aircraft for weight and balance reasons. But I don't think this happens that often any more.

Whenever I see complaints of this nature from horrified parents that their child is sat away from them is from people travelling in groups with two or more people sat together and their child sat away from them. It's very simple: parent/guardian 1 sits with child, and parent/guardian 2 sits alone, a complete non-issue.

I'm just very surprised that the issue was not solved at source. Given the emphasis on short turnarounds and on-time departures, it came as quite a surprise that the airline was willing to waste fifteen minutes of cabin crew time to sort out the multiple seating issues caused by a poor seating allocation algorithm.

As this was a full flight to a holiday destination, there were eight or nine families that needed cabin crew intervention to get them seated with the right number of children next to adults, and the right number of infant-in-arms in the rows. Perhaps I had too high an expectation of the systems integration.

A few years back I was on LHR-ABZ with BA and some genius had managed to scatter the whole of a school year (?9 year-olds) from Banchory Junior School and their teachers and family at random through the aircraft

One lad was in 1A and there was no-one around him (he thought it was bloody marvelous of course)

Common sense prevailed and the aircraft was "reconfigured" to put the school party all together in the back with an adult on each aisle seat

An American lady started to complain but the flinty looks she got from the other passengers soon shut her up

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.

Reminds me of one trip back from South Africa. Sabena (a 743, I think) I was in Club upstairs so four seats across, I was in the 'A' and the other three were empty.

At Kinshasha, a Dutch family boarded and it was clear by their looking at their boarding cards, that Mum + Dad were in the 'C' and 'D' and the (apparently 17/18 year old) daughter was in 'B' next to me. The mum took one look at me and told her daughter to sit next to dad in 'C' and plonked herself next to me. I was deeply offended and took to the bottle.

Yes, you are.

As far as "the system" is concerned, its done its job. You wanted seats allocated together, it gave you seats allocated together. What you do with those seats is your problem.

Dread to think the sort of panic you must get into when you get one of those four-seater tables allocated on a train and the computer puts your family round the table in a random order. :E

Also bear in mind there are routes at certain times of the year where there are so many children that the computer says 'sod it' I can't deal with this, sort it out yourselves. In other words, there are too many families and children to get everyone sat immediately next to each other.

I think you guys are being a little hard on the OP. He appeared to be of the view that there was a legal requirement that they take the seats as assigned. In this crazy industry anything is possible!

Try reading an airlines terms and conditions (which everyone SHOULD do) and you will see where he got the idea from.

He now knows that there is no legal requirement and, within his allocation, he can do what he wants. Swapping seats with other passengers is also legal, but a bit more complicated.

Also, with paid seat allocation, you generally can get what you want - if you do it far in enough in advance. If it is a concern you can pay. You will be happy, the cabin crew will be happy and your fellow passengers will be happy.

Thank you all, and yes, ExXB, that was the point I was trying to make.

So if the seat reservation system has no idea of passenger ages, does that mean I can select seats that are all over the plane? What fun. :E

It does go some of the way to explaining who so many people were angry that they were booted out of the seats they had booked. I know the terms and conditions say you don't always get the seat you booked, so you have little reason to complain. However it does make the idea of booking seats a little ludicrous if the plane has be reshuffled because the reservation system cannot put minors with one parent.

Passengers who have not paid for a specific seat will be moved first. The cabin crew wil have means if identifying who has paid for seats and only in exceptionally rare circumstances will passengers who paid a specific seat be moved.

Some airlines (Air NZ is one) require you to return to your assigned seat before landing, which - given that crew instructions have quasi-legal authority - people comply with. Tight Slot could perhaps enlighten us?

The captain has ultimate authorify on the flight. Due to most not having any interest in where people sit outside effecting the trim of the aircraft we delegate it to the cabin crew.

If they say to sit in a seat it becomes you're assigned seat.

I have been feeling very guilty with myself over this issue.

Last week on a flight JFK-DXB-DEL, i took particular care to online check in on time to select all my seats for the long flight. As luck would have it I have it I had a couple and a lap baby in the seat next to me from JFK with the kid being extra cranky for most of the journey including kicking stuff over repeatedly.

On the DXB - DEL sector i had chosen as close to the front of the aircraft in Y class as possible to ensure I did not get stuck in the sub continent baggage trap and get out of the aircraft and immigration as fast as possible.

On reaching my seat it was occupied by a person who said if i could switch seats with him further down about 15 rows middle seat. His wife and 11 year old kid were in window and middle and I was in aisle. He claimed his wife was pregnant and he wanted to sit with her (Probably real early term as not visible). I was particularly irritated and normally would have obliged but after the prior flight politely declined as said I had chosen this seat and did not want a middle or back of the aircraft for a reason.

He was polite enough and got up and subsequently organised multiple moves to ensure his family was seated with him finally.....but i did feel a little guilty later......

Could the air crew have forced me to give up my seat and exchange?.........the splitting the family up issue is hard and would make sense if computer system did talk to each other, but kinda defeats the purpose of online check in and blocking your seat a FF......:\

@mad jock. Yep, got that, but there has to be a valid reason, no?

No - they don't have to give you a reason - they are in charge and you obey

It's so that when the airplane crashes and everyone is burnt to a crisp, they can tell who you were by what seat you were sitting in.:ouch:

same as lifebelts - it's to make it easier to pickup the bodies after a crash

100% with Heathrow it doesn't need a valid reason. You do as your told.

If I get involved 95% chance you get off loaded if you give any backchat at all.

It is a legal instruction by the crew, and that crew has been delegated by myself within the instructions of their SOP manuals or they may well have asked and I have authorised it to be within the M&B. If you screw with them I will not tolerate it.

If the CC have screwed up I will tell you now that the poo will start descending from a very high height which may end up they are unemployed afterwards. The place is not to argue about it in the air we have zero tolerance for that. On the ground I would be open to complaints if you asked to speak to me. And I wouldn't be that the CC are always correct I would be open to the fact that you may be in the right.

Some airlines the captain wouldn't have the same clout hire em and fire them. But in all airlines if a valid point is raised it would be reported back through the system. The system is god even if your event didn't result in anything happening maybe they just had a bad day but were normally 100% it would stay on record and if there was a history action taken.

To be honest checkin staff are pretty clueless I have had a couple of them had trips to the office as well due to seating allocation putting geriatric gimps in the emergency exit rows. And then it was me that had to chuck the auld :mad: out with them bitching they had paid for the extra leg room and the checkin staff had said it was OK for them to sit there.

I'll start this off with "Don't forget who's paying your salary". Just to calm everybody down.
Your employer ( and my contractual partner) offers me seat selection as part of the package (transportation of myself and a defined quantity of luggage) I've bought.
If I have a boarding pass (which I've printed myself) for my selected and allocated seat and a flight attendant tells me that, no, I'm not sitting there, I'm sitting elsewhere, it's not unreasonable to expect an explanation.
If your immediate reaction is to threaten to offload me for asking - in you're [sic] terminology, "backchat" - my lawyer will be talking to your CEO in a flash.
Given that I don't frequent crap airlines, it's unlikely that our paths will cross.
But I've rarely read so much tosh, arrogance and ignorant ranting....

Mad_jock: your attitude is deplorable. I do not think it unreasonable to explain to a passenger who is paying your wages why they are being moved. You seem the type who attracts trouble and your attitude is to blame and you need to get over yourself. I was crew for years, never once did I need the flight deck to sort out issues for me and that's working on very small planes too.

mad_jock now has time to decide if he wants to contribute further to this forum, that is the whole of PPRuNe, not just SLF.




Back to the thread:
Given that carriers are going to continue:

• selling different seats at different prices
• asking pax to do more work of seat selection and log in
• packing as many flights into each shift (ground crew, just as much as flight/cabin)
• reducing turnaround times

The opportunities for mistakes and upsets to seat allocation is only going to increase.

I agree. Seating families together is quicker and makes people happier. Most airlines will try its best to seat families together. I do not support the conspiracy theorists who claim airlines deliberately split people up to make money. Splitting families up means time wasted rearranging the cabin which eats in to FDP and OTP if a delay occurs.

Seat swaps, flying with kids, etc..
 

My advice would be to trust your fellow passengers to handle it, and to help you out. Most people are pretty awesome, and can be highly self-directed / helpful if given the opportunity.

I fly almost weekly with my Daughter (7) and we are often seated miles apart. 90% of the time, as soon as I direct the kid into her seat and tell her to "be good, mommy is just 25 rows away" her seatmates are falling all over themselves to offer me a seat and trade places. I try to thank them profusely, give them a hug, and buy them a drink for their kindness. long haul, short haul, 16 hour flights to NZ / the Middle East, people are always wonderful about swapping seats.

On the rare occasion when they don't offer to swap seats, I'll tell them where I'm located, offer to swap if she becomes a problem, hand the kid a stack of books, and enjoy a few hours of child-free bliss. Often her seatmates are empty nesters or travelling dads / moms who seem to relish the opportunity to do the grandparent / parent thing for a couple of hours.

In two + years of weekly flights, we've yet to have a negative experience with pax and we've never once had to ask the crew to intervene on our behalf.

Some years ago, my wife and were holidaying in the Dominican Republic, flying with Thomsons. I had requested, and paid for, "Seats together" as my wife is a VERY nervous flyer. We didn't actually get our seats allocated until check in, so I was surprised to see we were "across the aisle", which wasn't too bad I suppose.

On the return leg, I was shocked to see that we were allocated seats that were behind each other. I asked a member of Cabin Crew if that was correct and was told to refer to the Terms and Conditions on the Website when we returned home.

I wrote and complained to Thomsons on our return home and was told the same, which is:

" Seats together may be across an aisle or behind each other. A similar position means the same type of seat (window, aisle etc) as your original selected seats."

Can Forum members tell me if that is universal across all airlines?

All airlines reserve the right to change your seats as they see fit due to "operational reasons", and no airline will guarantee you seats.

Maybe next time get a note added to your PNR about your wife that the check-in agent can read and perhaps apply more discretion.

Thread drift?
 

I just flew London/New York on BA. I had paid for a seat reservation. I cheked in online and printed my boarding pass. When I dropped my bag I was given a new boarding pass with a new seat number. OK, it happens. What irked me was that I had paid for a window seat and my new seat was an inside aisle. The check in agent changed it but it can't be impossible to look at the previous allocation and try and pick the same kind of seat even with an automated system. Oh well, like I said, things happen!

SoS - I do not think you are being very fair with Mad_Jock. Most airlines employ pretty competent cabin crew whose job it is to deal with passengers. They have more empathy than us, they have the on-board systems (well ours do) to tell them who paid for what, where people should be sat and a list of free (unallocated) seats. They'll also have a reasonable idea as to what is possible and normally try to use information, tact, reasonableness and charm as their tools to deal with difficult situations. We spend a great deal of money on staff training to develop these skills. But when these have failed and we get a "I demand to speak to the Captain" in the cabin I can almost predict that the outcome will not be as the person demanding my attention expects.

Yes, I will listen to what is being said by the passenger and I will listen to my colleagues in the cabin and hear what has been attempted to find a resolution. But generally, if the likes of Easyflyer83 can't sort a problem out, it's most unlikely I'll be able to do anything. Also, we have to be careful about appearing to undermine the authority our colleagues - if we are to have an uneventful flight. Lastly, I have normally found that a disgruntled passenger (a person who pays my wages) often has a reasonable case but they are generally not prepared to accept any compromises whatsoever. If they were, I wouldn't be having a discussion with them. We also don't have adequate "tools" to fix the problem before departure. Which leaves us with only one solution if we are to depart. Fortunately, I've only had to "deal" with half a dozen or so these incidents over the past 13 years (3-4,000 flights or so).

And while we are here, Mixture has added an interesting point - the "operational reasons" possibility. This generally means a different type of aircraft may be substituted at short notice. In my case we have learned to look out for those who have paid for seat upgrades, but the back-office systems have historically been out of sync with reality. Its getting better, but it can still be a challenge.


And if there are any cabin crew here, would they please tell me if a parent HAS to sit with my sons (Ages 14 & 16 - TCX flying NCL/ACE). We are happy not to sit with them and they would probably prefer to be by themselves. But one parent will be with my daughter (age 9) which means we only have to have two pairs of seats allocated plus a single. But having said that, I'm too tight to pay to select my own seat so I'll delegate the seating issue to TCX. I'm just wondering what they should/will do.

Unfortunately Pit S.O.S is not crew and seems not to have a clue about the legal responsibility's of a crew.

Or for that matter that Captains are not employed to be nice cuddly huggie feely types.

The legislation is set in law in most countries its defined in the air navigation order which is an act of parliament so as such breaches of it are in the high court domain and carry a sentence up to 7 years in prison in the UK.

This act apply's equally to the crew as it does to the pax, ie if we are deficient in our application of the act we get the same scale of punishment that the pax do.

The buck stops at the Captain inside an aircraft, it doesn't matter what marketing and commercial have dreamed up they have to keep the flight legal.

On the subject of informing pax, its not as easy as it seems, the company legal types don't want you to get into a discussion if you are using your rights given under the act of parliament. All that leads to is potential for a long drawn out court case arguing the toss. So its " I am giving you a legal instruction so if you don't comply your getting off". Even if you want to expand they instruct you not to.

It doesn't happen very often but when it does it isn't pleasant for the crew and there is heaps of paper work.

And Pit they don't, basically once the kids is un-min grade they can be seated where ever. Most CC will move others to get it through for an age 9 female.

The operational crew are not the ones to complain to though.
It needs to go directly to customer services complaints. We (crew) can report issues as many times as we like but until there is an overwhelming issues coming into commercial from all sides they will ignore it. We saw how long it took for a certain loco to change to allocated seating.

The selling of emergency exit leg room though is particularly annoying to me, it is by far (90%) the cause of most conflicts to do with seat allocation. It is also the one most fraught with legal discussions as it is a matter of opinion if the person at the door can operate it. Having to lumber the thing out 30-40 times a year doing pilot safety equipment training I know for a fact that if a frail auld un lifts the handle they will just end up on the floor with a 25kg door on top of them. But they are the ones who are most likely to pay the extra cash for the leg room. The suggestion to remove a row to have completely free from legislation extra leg room is always refused for economic reasons.

The only way to stop the practise would be a legislation change to ban the practise of pre allocating emergency exit rows. But as there prime efforts at the moment in EASA seem to be pushing through legislation to force airlines to allow two pieces of hand baggage completely ignoring the safety aspects of where to put the baggage in the cabin I will not hold my breath.

Anyway I will leave this forum in peace now due to S.O.S, not many operational crew can be bother with this forum and it can continue without my input so that's one less person that has a clue giving input to the SLF.

Pax don't pay my wages, the company does, the company also has a clauses in my contract that I have to do certain things which I do. The loosing of certain awkward customers to other carriers isn't really an issue as 99.99% of pax get on and get off again without a problem. To be honest by the time you take into account the time and effort spent dealing with the complaints from the 0.01%, there is no profit in transporting them anyway.

No doudt I will have another week away only being able to read pprune due to me being a Captain and speaking like one and not some huggy puffy HR type.

Worth a read

Top 5 Reasons Why 'The Customer Is Always Right' Is Wrong*|*Alexander Kjerulf

Ah that chestnut, as stated the company pays the salary of it's employees.
The customer contributes towards that salary as with the salaries of everyone else involved with the operation, the cost of fuel, the cost of the aircraft, the charges imposed by ATC and airports, government imposed taxes, the income tax & NI of the employees, corporation tax, need I go on.
But as customers we agree to abide by the T&Cs and have to abide by the law. we have no option to change those if things don't go our way.

From cabin crew I know, the I pay your salary brigade often suddenly find that they are no longer welcome aboard any aircraft of that carrier where they try it on!

Most don't understand how much the things that are taken as normal rights are null and void after stepping through the first line of security at an airport until they step out the door at the end of travel.

I must have gone through the argument on the discrimination act 5-6 times over the last 12 years about disabled access rights on aircraft. It always gets trumped by the ANO.

CAP 393: Air Navigation: The Order and the Regulations | Publications | About the CAA

Here it is for those that want to wade through it.

And there is a small legion of people out there that have half a clue about aircraft operations who will be more than happy to report any breaches to the authorities. You never know who is in the back.

I had a post flight discussion with a pax about wx in the terminal while he waited for a taxi and I had a cup of coffee and some leading questions about the navigational aids at the airport and the effect of down grading the ILS to a lower standard of approach aid would have. And the fact he wouldn't have been there if we hadn't had it as we had just landed in 600m and got the lights at 200ft bang on mins.

Turned out he was the minister of transport for the country in question and the ILS remained.

There are airlines out there that use mystery passengers whose sole aim is to ensure that cabin crew follow company procedures, not self imposed rules that passengers dream up for their own benefit.
I know of one ex purser that used to have a printed copy of the Conditions of Carriage to hand and would never hesitate to point out to difficult passengers just what they had agreed to when they bought a ticket

For the record:
No, I am not crew.
Yes, I am very well aware that the 'buck' stops with the Captain.
I have been a pax from a very young age and remember the 'old days' and am not very happy about many aspects of the 'new days'.
The rules of PPRuNe state that you may not be rude to others in the forum, or make defamatory remarks about anyone - in or out of the forums.

mad_jock Your posts today are great. They are helpful and informative - no reason to ban anyone. They are the kind of posts that the owners and administrators of PPRuNe seek the most.

I certainly agree 100% about selling exit row seats. It is deplorable and, if I was in the CAA, would never have allowed it. Unfortunately, until people die nothing will change. Hopefully, it will just be the 'frail auld un' in hospital from the 25kg door and that might start CEOs and board members thinking.

Further, I also wish that more carriers would prevent the drunks from boarding and offload the awkward ones - but I do know something about the commercial world.


Lastly, if it matters, it was another Mod who banned you before I saw your post. It just fell to me to deliver the news to the nation. In doing so, I chose wording previously used by TightSlot.

I have off loaded a mystery pax off before, which is what they intended as it was an exercise/audit for the ground handling agents.

The pax apparently should have never made it to the aircraft.

No harm done but they were told if they were doing it again the exercise should stop as soon as they passed the door of the aircraft.

Nothing was said about my forthright handling of the offload on-board.

Well its your forums loss.

There was nothing personal in that post and I can't remember what was under the now :mad:

But it was more than likely auld f a r t.

And to be honest this forum needs a moderator with a clue on the operations aspects of what we do.

If you want professional input your going to have to expect a forthright none mixing of words on certain subjects. The control of pax and the responsibility's of the crew is one of those subjects that there is no discussion about. Mincing words on the subject just gives forth the view that anyone actually cares what the PAX point of view is or for that matter has any way of changing the current situation.

Captains are not employed to be polite individuals we are employed to get people from A to B safely in an economic manner and to manage and deal with everything that's thrown at us.

If a pax gets us out the flight deck they can expect a robust response which may or may not be politically correct. By getting us they have bypassed the people that have been trained to deal with that sort of thing. All you will get is bad cop after that, one who is empowered by law that you must obey their instructions.

Sorry guys but mad_jock has a point there.

Certainly as cabin crew it can be difficult when we do have to enforce something. When it comes to seating it has to be an exceptional case before crew have to make the decision that seating needs to be changed. Certainly in 9 years I've never had to do that. Generally you can appeal to people's better nature. If you have to enforce it then there is I usually a good reason and that reason should be fully explained to those effected. However, that decision will have been made and if it's for a justifiable reason it is not up for negotiation. That is where the problem lies. Passengers often don't see or appreciate the 'official' role of cabin crew and so if things have gone wrong and the crew has to ask/tell them to do something then they regard it as bad customer service on the part of the crew member....even if the airline is to blame.

I'm glad that the rule on electronics had changed as you could get some nasty retorts for simply and politely asking people to switch their device off. A lot of passengers often don't like it when crew have to ask them to do things in order to adhere to SOP's. Why? Because they only see and appreciate the customer service side of things.

Of course, there will be rare occasions that Hitler like crew will be on board your flight but there are also rare occasions where passengers will be difficult, will argue the toss and those are the times where you have to remain polite but also be robust. That is the point I think mad_jock is trying to make.

Its not often I come out in support of mad_jock, but he's hit the nail on the head with his point of view....

The cabin crew are trained to be all nice and sweet to the SLF and will happily be at your disposal for the duration of the flight. They are also duly empowered by the captain to strongly encourage (since they don't have the ultimate authority) passengers to abide by certain rules/restrictions whilst on board items on his/her behalf.

If you drag the captain out of his/her seat to deal with some childish tantrum over some petty little problem then you deserve what you get.

If you see flames coming out the engine or the wings falling off and there's not much sign of any action being taken, then by all means stamp and shout at the cabin crew to say the captain may wish to come take a look. But other than that, let the captain do his/her job, let the cabin crew do theirs, and you do yours (sit down,belt up, and ideally shut up ;) ).

Over many years, and on balance, I think I have witnessed (as opposed to heard of) as much bad behaviour from cabin crew as passengers.

Where I have seen argumentative passengers and it escalated the attitude of the cabin crew was a major factor.

Interestingly, have only seen it get silly on British and American airlines - Asian and Gulf airlines have always managed to calm things down without giving anything away.

So maybe, just maybe, the attitude of people like Mad Jock is part of the problem. Not all passengers are sinners - but not all cabin crew are saints.