Anyone else get strange seat assignments?

[lawlesslovewdw]

The airlines always sit me with my little ones, i have begged, pleaded and offered alsorts of favors so i can be sat a few rows behind

In all honesty as a parent it is worrying thinking that you are going to be apart from your little ones esp on a 9 1/2 hr flight. I always book early and try and secure seats together, but what stranger is going to want to sit next to a 15mth or 2 1.2 year old for that long. I can just imagine them helping themselves to their snacks, magazines etc Wiping their noses on the seats, and telling them they have had a poo

Think next year im going upper class and leave the kids in economy

 

[DebbieB]

You people all need to "ligthen up a little" - Gosh if you had read the post before mine, we were just kidding. The last thing I would do is sit my poor child beside some stranger.

Sorry if I took your comment seriously if you did not intend it to be, but I have had experiences where someone tried to push me out of my seat by pulling something similiar rather than just asking me to switch.

 

[safetymom]

Guess I fly too much. I didn't see it as funny either.

 

[TruBlu]

Back OT... I did book early. The Disney CM was confused about which seats were together. She thought that A and B were together when B and C really are. I was just trying to give a heads-up to anyone else who may have had the same situation. I rarely fly and didn't know until it was almost to late too get the seat assignment changed.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

My sister's advice is to plop the little ones down beside the stranger, hand the stranger their earplanes, a kleenex, their gameboy a few snacks and explain if they have any problems you will be enjoying a magazine a few rows behind them.

I guess I missed the "humor" here too. If someone pulled this with me, I'd just drop the stuff in the trash. I don't mean to be rude, but I spent 20+ years raising my own children and never expected a stranger to look out for them.

 

[penguin087]

Geez lighten up a little. It was a joke.
The last flight I was on I was sitting on the aisle next to an elderly woman in the middle and a young woman with an infant in the window seat (they were not together). My son (10 yrs old) was sitting on the aisle 3 rows back with 2 elderly women. I asked the elderly woman in my row if she would like my sons aisle seat. She looked back and said "oh yes he is sitting with my sisters we were unable to get seats together. We called the airline everyday. None of us have ever flown before and we really wanted to be together" I too had called once and asked at check in. We both were told no our parties couldn't sit together. One of us had to have booked the flight before the other so why we were split up in the 1st place is a mystery to me.

 

[Mickey'snewestfan]

I recently heard a story from an online friend who was traveling with 4 children -- one was a young teenager and the other 3 of them preschool aged triplets, one of whom had severe disabilities (couldn't talk, see, walk or sit up independently). She was flying somewhere by herself with her husband meeting her at the airport there.

She had called the airline months in advance spoken to their special need coordinator, etc . . . who guaranteed them 5 seats together in the front of the plane (since her son couldn't sit in an aisle chair they had to carry him down the aisle) and then gotten to the airport hours early. The airline had moved their seats so that no two of them were together, and they were spread from the very front of the plane to the back, all in middle seats. They even expected her disabled son to sit alone. The airline told them there was nothing they could do, because they had given the seats to frequent fliers who had "prioirity", and she had to wait until others had boarded and beg them to change seats. She ended up with 2 seats together and put her teenager next to her special needs child (who was in a carseat BTW, I thought that law stated that kids in carseats needed to be by an adult family member?) and then traded for 3 middle seats that were at least close enough that she could see the other two little ones.

I didn't know what horrified me the most about this story -- that the airline wasn't able to "lock in" seats that it had promised on the grounds of disability, that once they realized their mistake the airline didn't bend over backwards to fix it, or that other passengers didn't immediately offer to rectify this situation. I also go to efforts to make sure I'm sitting with my seven year old, and have an aisle seat, but you'd better believe I'd give it up in a heartbeat to accomodate a child in a situation like this.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

This is a completely different issue than simply splitting up a regular family.

Personally, I would have immediately called the special needs coordinator and asked for a supervisor as soon as this problem became apparent. I hope that she at least made a formal complaint to the airline after the trip.