Simple Solution to this Problem

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, Airband said:

Party of 2 in this instance, but who's counting.

Unless my basic math is wrong, Mother, Father and Child are a party of 3.  No????????

[Vsplat]

It is an interesting exercise in the normalization of deviance, isn't it?

Bunk dweller, if we made it absolutely mandatory for parents and children to seated together, but not mandatory for the parents to tell the airline in advance via seat selection, how exactly do you see this playing out?  Who is supposed to lose their prepaid seat

Allowing parents to use their kids as leverage to get something they did not pay for, by denying those who DID pay for seat selection the value of their purchase, is simply wrong.

The norm used to be that everyone paid the same fare and got the same privileges.  Including the same level of seat selection.  Then came the free market pressure, where enough people said, 'drop the price if I don't care where I sit' and viola, a discounted class was created.  The 'normal' fare was still there, there was just a new, discounted option.

Well, guess what?  The discounted fare is now considered the new 'normal' and the perception of the market is that customers have to pay 'extra' for the normal fare.  180 degrees opposite to the reality. 

If I pay for a car, I can pay for the standard version that has air conditioning, or pay a discount for a version without air.  If I do that, on the day I show up to claim my car, but notice another customer's car with air conditioning beside mine, I don't have the right to drive away with theirs.   This situation is no different, and customers that spin this with 'big bad corporation' and using their kids are offside.

I've travelled with my kids plenty.  When they were little, we paid to have our seats pre-selected.  The parents in these cases appear to have gambled on not paying for control of the seating in the unreasonable hope that someone else would give them what they want and absorb the cost themselves.  I would have been ashamed to admit that to my kids, let alone the press.  But to each their own.

 

Vs

[Airband]

54 minutes ago, Malcolm said:

Unless my basic math is wrong, Mother, Father and Child are a party of 3.  No????????

"With regards to the original Facebook post, Air Canada tells Global News the travel agent for the family did not indicate that one of the two travellers was a child and so the automatic seat selection for families did not pick up a problem."

Mother wasn't a pax.

[Super 80]

46 minutes ago, Vsplat said:

It is an interesting exercise in the normalization of deviance, isn't it?

Bunk dweller, if we made it absolutely mandatory for parents and children to seated together, but not mandatory for the parents to tell the airline in advance via seat selection, how exactly do you see this playing out?  Who is supposed to lose their prepaid seat

Allowing parents to use their kids as leverage to get something they did not pay for, by denying those who DID pay for seat selection the value of their purchase, is simply wrong.

The norm used to be that everyone paid the same fare and got the same privileges.  Including the same level of seat selection.  Then came the free market pressure, where enough people said, 'drop the price if I don't care where I sit' and viola, a discounted class was created.  The 'normal' fare was still there, there was just a new, discounted option.

Monetizing seat selection is insane in the first place. It's an odd point for differentiation. Especially when one contemplates the requirements of passengers assigned to certain seats.

Why does the airline industry insist on jumping up and down and waving their arms at Ottawa and Washington while screaming. REGULATE US! REGULATE US NOW! THE PAX EXPERIENCE NEEDS TO BE REGULATED! REGULATE US!

[Seeker]

2 minutes ago, Super 80 said:

Monetizing seat selection is insane in the first place.

 

But this is what the passengers want - the option of giving up "frills" in order to get the lowest possible fare.

[DEFCON]

4 hours ago, seeker said:

In any case, the clause you are probably referring to only says that children under 8 must be accompanied by an adult in the same cabin so 10 rows (or whatever) away meets the rules anyway.

Yes, that's what I meant by my comments, but I do not agree that placing a four year old somewhere else in the cabin makes them less than an unaccompanied minor for all the reasons Bunk Dweller provided as quoted below.

1 hour ago, Bunk Dweller said:

Who is going to assist this 3 year old in evacuating in the event of an emergency, or ensure his oxygen mask is on in a depressurisation? Or even who will help him eat his food (if he gets any) or turn on the tv for him? Take him to the bathroom? Ensure he's not seated next to a sexual predator?

I entirely agree with Vsplat's position.

 

At first blush, AC's family seating policy seems intended to confound the expectations of the guy who wants to pay for advance eat selection.

Where does the family seating policy begin and end? What if three young children along with Mom & Dad show up at the gate with tickets obtained at the lowest possible fare and from their attempt at online seat selection know well they can't get seats together?

Is the guy seeking to pay for advance seat selection potentially being denied the ability to choose a more expensive option to accommodate AC's family policy? If that is the case, is AC protecting yields / margins by passing on a bit of the cost of said family seating policy to each pax regardless of where they may be seated?

 

[Super 80]

12 minutes ago, seeker said:

But this is what the passengers want - the option of giving up "frills" in order to get the lowest possible fare.

Just like they want the TV channel with all the televangelists and incomprehensible surcharges when they buy a car.

[Boney]

2 hours ago, Bunk Dweller said:

I have to disagree with the majority of people here. It should be absolutely mandatory that parents and children who are too young to travel by themselves without UM status (so age 12 in ACs case) be seated together. Who is going to assist this 3 year old in evacuating in the event of an emergency, or ensure his oxygen mask is on in a depressurisation? Or even who will help him eat his food (if he gets any) or turn on the tv for him? Take him to the bathroom? Ensure he's not seated next to a sexual predator? It should be a requirement to seat children with their parents and parents should not have to pay extra for this. It's basic duty of care! If you don't pay for seat selection you don't get to choose where in the cabin you are seated, but at least one parent must still be seated next to a minor!

I agree with most of your post. However, it may depend on the time of booking. One cannot expect to book a flight very close to departure and expect that seats may be available. If the flight shows relatively full, then the booking should have seat selection made, even if one has to pay extra, especially if the minor could be considered a UM if travelling by themselves. Of course, purchasing a high fare option may include seat selection without additional costs. 

[IFG]

Sayre's law states: "In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake"

How serious is this thoroughly first-world problem that's being parsed out here, and how cumbersome are some of the 'solutions'? Most people are fairly decent about dealing with kids. Bunkdweller is on point - There was a three-year-old involved here, perhaps deserving of a little accommodation even if the parents may be @$$holes and/or idiots. There were presumably four passengers who could have mitigated this problem, and most of the time, one of them steps up. Occasionally, a little sweet-talking & 'encouragement' may be required, and that's just part of service-industry world. In my own experience FWIW, volunteers often get a little compensatory comping/perking, that 'sacrifice' may not be entirely altruistic .

As for tangential issues/comments, I'm all for reduced pricing for forgoing frills I don't care about. I suspect many here really are, in their actual choices if not their averment . That said, perhaps the airlines do need to insert a disclaimer of sorts prior to final payment online, maybe preauthorizing any fees to be added at the gate (whether seat-selection, bag check etc.). Seems to work for car-rentals.

Cheers, IFG

p.s. I'm finding the edit function almost impossible to use, and resorting to deletion and new post. Anybody else having problems?

[Vsplat]

How about this?  When booking, ask the question, are any members of your traveling party unable to be seated alone?  If yes, then only fare options with preselected seating can be booked. 

I can already hear the screams. 

Vs

[John S.]

5 hours ago, Malcolm said:

Then of course the option would have been to pay in advance for better seats...

Pay? Did you day "pay"? I'm a (retired) pilot so that is just talking nonsense! 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, IFG said:

 

p.s. I'm finding the edit function almost impossible to use, and resorting to deletion and new post. Anybody else having problems?

Works r me. Using Edge.  I quoted full post and t  deleted  your question. Cheers  Added this after doing deletions

[IFG]

Just now, Malcolm said:

Works fine for me. Using Microsoft Edge.  I quoted your full post and then deleted all but your question. Cheers

NB: Apologies for thread drift (hopefully brief)

The problem wasn't in the normal cropping and crafting of the post (or a quote), Malcolm, it was when I went back to make a correction after submission (edit button lower left). Several times when I hit "Save" after my edit, the window froze. Only if I opened another window, re-navigated to the post and then made the correction, would it accept the change, after 2 or 3 tries. When I went to re-edit (ya, lousy typist  ), even that didn't work, so copied post, deleted, pasted corrected text into new. Problem there would be if somebody slipped in a reply while doing all that, putting them out of order. FWIW, using W8.1, & IE (auto-updated), pretty standard setup.

Cheers, Ian

[Guest]

29 minutes ago, IFG said:

NB: Apologies for thread drift (hopefully brief)

The problem wasn't in the normal cropping and crafting of the post (or a quote), Malcolm, it was when I went back to make a correction after submission (edit button lower left). Several times when I hit "Save" after my edit, the window froze. Only if I opened another window, re-navigated to the post and then made the correction, would it accept the change, after 2 or 3 tries. When I went to re-edit (ya, lousy typist  ), even that didn't work, so copied post, deleted, pasted corrected text into new. Problem there would be if somebody slipped in a reply while doing all that, putting them out of order. FWIW, using W8.1, & IE (auto-updated), pretty standard setup.

Cheers, Ian

Ian: I went in and edited my original response to you, deleted some words, entered some new text... no problems. What you are experiencing almost sounds like a server problem at your end.  Have you run any speed tests lately?

[IFG]

Just now, Malcolm said:

Ian: I went in and edited my original response to you, deleted some words, entered some new text... no problems. What you are experiencing almost sounds like a server problem at your end.  Have you run any speed tests lately?

I did wonder about that, Malcolm, but all the other functions, here & elsewhere on the web, seem to run normally. IAC, I'll poke around a bit.  We can plug this little rabbit hole, I seem to be having an isolated difficulty. I'll PM you if I find anything interesting, tho'.

Cheers, Ian

[Wolfhunter]

It should be remembered that many people are not frequent flyers, or even savvy fliers for that matter. Knowing this, it’s the smart ones who use travel agents in all out effort to avoid travel pitfalls (like this foolishness). It’s no surprise either, is it? Even AC posts interceptor pit bulls at the automated check in booths to help these folks … right?

 

In terms of my experience in the industry and life in general, I now find myself at odds with the vast majority of posters on this forum on almost all subjects. No matter how you spin it, in my world, forcing a 3 year old to travel next to strangers borders on idiotic and helps no one. If I prepaid for a seat in the cattle car (only MBAs and retired Naval Officers could have dreamed that up) Imagine how disappointed I’d be if I actually paid extra to baby sit. When you get around to charging for access to the lavs, I confidently predict longer turnaround times and a higher than normal turn over in groomers.

[cp fa]

Interceptor pit bulls? 

[Say Again, Over!]

As Wolfhunter, I'm a bit surprised to read the comments from those for whom customer service should be a priority.  While this might seem obvious to you as you fly or are involved in the airline's operation on a daily basis, there is a large group of people who will only fly once or twice in their lives!

I had the privilege of flying to LHR and back with my son a couple weeks ago (great service both trips, BTW.  Thanks to the crews of AC864 and 865 for the 19th and 28th respectively) and while I've been in aviation for 25 years, I didn't travel a lot.  I'm finding out while reading this that my travel agent booked our seats for us.  If they hadn't, I wouldn't have known that it's something I had to do!!  I know, I know!! It's all written down somewhere on a webpage or page 34 of my booking contract.  I understand.  But it was all new to me.  I didn't dare check-in online as I didn't know if my carry on fit (it was right on the numbers).  How could I know I could change this when I got to the airport?  Obvious to the frequent flyer but not so much for the guy who's intimidated to have to go through customs.

I'm not saying that travelling with a child should absolve you of all responsibility... obviously.  But since an airline has the age of all travellers, it might be a nice addition to the booking website to inform you that there is no longer a possibility for you to sit together or at least useful information when they prepare the seating of the cabin.  Maybe?

Just my (very) inexperienced perspective.

[Guest]

 AirCanada does publish a lot of information , search engine on their page yielded this : http://www.aircanada.com/en/travelinfo/before/youngtravellers/infant-child.html  I imagine it will have an additional entry added to tell the passenger what to do if they wish to sit with their child/children.

WestJet goto to a similar but not as comprehensive page is : http://www.westjet.com/guest/en/travel/basics/children-infants-mothers/  again no mention of what to do if you want to sit with your children.

 

******** IMO common sense should apply, that is, the need to ask when making your booking if you will be seated together*****

[Fido]

1 hour ago, Say Again, Over! said:

But since an airline has the age of all travellers

They do?

In all of my travels I have never been asked this nor can I remember putting it on my online reservations.

[Say Again, Over!]

24 minutes ago, Fido said:

They do?

In all of my travels I have never been asked this nor can I remember putting it on my online reservations.

Huh... I guess they might not.  I provided this to my travel agent as per her request.  I assumed this was all part of having all the necessary passenger information.  Sorry about providing misleading information.  Just goes to show the depth of my ignorance!!

[Fido]

59 minutes ago, Say Again, Over! said:

I provided this to my travel agent as per her request

Maybe they wanted your birth date so that they could send you a card and present every year.

[mo32a]

When you purchase the tickets online it always asks how many adults/children are flying. At least everyone I have used does.

[Guest]

44 minutes ago, mo32a said:

When you purchase the tickets online it always asks how many adults/children are flying. At least everyone I have used does.

Exactly and this is what you get on the AC web site:

Quote

Flexible with dates (+/- 3 days)

0 Adult (16+)1 Adult (16+)2 Adults (16+)3 Adults (16+)4 Adults (16+)5 Adults (16+)6 Adults (16+)7 Adults (16+)8 Adults (16+)9 Adults (16+)10+ Adults (16+)

Add children

 

[Zan Vetter]

Who the hell wants to sit next to a child but the parents? If I didn't think it cruel to my 2,7,9 yr olds I'd just as happily sit by myself. It's a big time waster to sort this out on board, airlines should admit this and find a process to address it at check-in or at the gate. As a sometimes con this is a difficult scenario, no seat selection possible.