After the hustle and bustle of the airport, settling into your seat on the plane is often a welcome chance to breathe a sigh of relief. But what happens when you find out the airline has seated you rows and rows away from your loved ones — even your children?
Traveller complaints, consumer reviews, and watchdog reports reveal it’s an all-too-common experience for passengers in the UK and abroad, [1] driven by a lack of industry regulation and airline money-making tactics; but how does seat separation on flights affect our emotions, booking habits, and hopes for the future of air travel?
We surveyed 1,050 Brits to find out.
Key findings:
- Top airlines like EasyJet, TUI Airways, and Virgin Atlantic are charging families up to £120 to guarantee seats next to each other on flights.
- It’s estimated that around £22,538,880 could potentially be spent on seat reservations alone by UK families with young children.
- Over half (51.4%) of holiday goers have been separated from their travelling companions on planes — or know someone it’s happened to.
- 48.9% of travellers think it’s unacceptable that there’s no legal requirement for airlines to seat children with their parents.
- The majority (91.8%) of passengers would switch seats to let a family sit together.
- Over a third (35%) of people would find it very stressful or unacceptable to be moved away from their companions on a flight.
- Most travellers (61.3%) have paid extra to sit next to someone they’ve booked with.
How Airlines Get Away With Seating Families Apart
Whether it’s a small group of travellers or a big family on vacation, groups being seated separately on planes is a common occurrence: our survey revealed that, for 51.4% of people in the UK, it’s either happened personally or happened to someone they know.
But when it comes to where children should be seated on planes, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) couldn’t be clearer: in the same or next row as a family member. “In an emergency situation,” says Dai Whittingham, CEO of the UK Flight Safety Committee, “anyone will try to get to their loved ones, even if it involves clambering over others, impeding the evacuation and putting lives at risk.” [2]
But despite that advice, airlines in the UK and further afield are under no legal obligation to seat children with their parents – a fact that nearly one in two (48.9%) of our survey respondents found unacceptable.
Many airlines say they aim to seat children next to or as close as possible to an accompanying adult, but often the only option parents have of guaranteeing neighbouring plane seats to their child is by paying additional (and potentially pricey) seat selection fees. Our table below reveals the policies of ten top airlines when it comes to seating children under 12.
The Emotional Cost of Being Separated
It’s clear that the lack of legal regulation is at odds with what most people feel is right when it comes to kids sitting away from their family: our survey revealed that the overwhelming majority (91.8%) of people would switch seats to let a child sit with a parent. It’s also understandable that almost one in ten people would prefer to stay in their seat, highlighting the inherent problem with airlines placing the burden of seat reshuffling on the passenger.
Social media showcases just how often this awkward incident occurs on flights, with anecdotes sparking viral debates around the etiquette, like in the case of one woman who refused to give up her paid seat for another passenger to sit with her six-year-old. [3] Ultimately, it’s clear that airlines have made a habit of relying on passenger cooperation to solve seating problems.
So, sitting together while flying is clearly considered an essential part of the journey; indeed, we discovered that 90.2% of people think that airlines should be seating fellow travellers together automatically. But how does being separated from companions — whether to switch with a child or by random allocation — make people feel?
For over a third (35%) of our survey respondents, being seated separately from friends or family is a notion they’d find “very stressful” or “unacceptable,” with a further 54.6% saying they’d be slightly annoyed if it happened. Only 10.5% of people reported that they’d have no issue.
How Seat Separation Worries Shape How We Book
It’s not hard to imagine why it’s an anxiety-provoking situation. Parents, for example, might be worried about their children’s safety and comfort when sitting alone, while other passengers might dread the boredom of being separated from friends, family, or a partner. Likely, too, is that travellers with a fear of flying — a phobia experienced by one in 10 people in the UK [4] — might need to be near a loved one for comfort on flights.
Whatever the reason, the need to sit together shapes how passengers book their flights: our survey revealed that 21.9% of people report exclusively booking with airlines that guarantee seats together, and 18.3% of people always pay extra to select their seats.
Airlines Make Billions From Seat Selection Tactics
And on the subject of paying extra, it seems airlines are keenly aware of how eager passengers are to stick together — and how much they’ll shell out for that peace of mind. While many airlines might claim to endeavour to seat groups together, often the only guarantee is to pay extra to reserve seats, an action that our survey found that 61.3% of Brits have taken.
One CAA survey found that for 27% of Brits recalling their last group trip, the first time they became aware they had to pay extra to sit with their companions was when they initially bought the tickets. Meanwhile, one in ten people only received a heads-up from the airline through follow-up confirmation emails and at check-in. [5]
When we put it to our survey respondents, we found that a quarter (25.9%) of people would pay more than £30 each way to guarantee sitting next to their family, friends, children, or a partner on a flight. But how does that compare to how much airlines are charging in reality? And which airlines are making the most money from a family’s desire to stay together?
For 10 major airlines, our table below reveals how much a family of four would have to pay on average for standard seats on a return journey (based on the starting cost of a solo traveller selecting their seat for the same trip). Virgin Atlantic comes in at the most pricey, charging a starting cost of £120 in fees for one family of four. EasyJet, meanwhile, is the least expensive at a not-inconsiderable £8.
| How much do top airlines charge families to sit together in the skies? | |||
| Rank | Airline | Starting cost for a solo traveller to select a standard seat (return journey) | Starting cost for a family of four to select standard seats together (return journey) |
| 1 | Virgin Atlantic | £30 | £120 |
| 2 | Etihad Airways | £24 | £96 |
| 3 | TUI Airways | £20 | £80 |
| =4 | British Airways | £14 | £56 |
| =4 | Jet2.com | £14 | £56 |
| 6 | KLM | £12 | £48 |
| 7 | Emirates | £10 | £41 |
| 8 | Ryanair | £9 | £36 |
| 9 | American Airlines | £8 | £32 |
| 10 | EasyJet | £2 | £8 |
With this in mind, it’s easy to see how airlines across the globe are generating billions from seat selection tactics.
In the UK, consumers are estimated to pay £400 million annually in booking fees to sit next to their loved ones on flights. [6] Based on research showing that 56% of families with children under five had travelled abroad in the 12 months prior to March 2024 [7], we estimate that over £22.5m has been spent on seat reservations alone by UK families with young children during that time.
Meanwhile, stateside, key US airlines made $4.2 billion from assigned seat fee revenue in 2022 alone, a total over 80% of what the same airlines made from baggage-related fees. [8]
Is Regulatory Change in the Air?
Our survey revealed that the majority (78.8%) of people think that there should be regulations requiring airlines to automatically seat passengers in the same party together.
Thankfully, change may be on the horizon: in 2024, the Biden administration proposed a ban on the “junk fees” that families are forced to pay just to sit next to each other on planes. [9] In Europe, the EU voted in June 2025 to ban seat selection fees for children aged 12 and under. [10]
In the meantime, our survey found that one in three (34.4%) people would be the most satisfied if an airline proactively resolved a seating separation issue before boarding.
A further 18.7% of people would want monetary compensation or travel credit if they were split up from their companion on a flight, and 14.6% would be content with a free rebooking on a later flight where the party could sit together.
Methodology
The survey conducted on behalf of Radical Storage asked a total of 1,050 UK adults about their experiences and opinions on the subject of seat separation on planes. 48.3% of respondents were women and 51.7% were men.
For 10 well-known airlines, we collected prices from various sources to determine the average “starting from” cost for a solo traveller to select their standard seat on a return flight. We used these figures as a base to calculate how much a family of four selecting standard seats on a return flight would have to pay in total.
We used ONS data to identify the number of UK households with one or more dependent children. To estimate how many of these families travelled abroad, we applied findings from a March 2024 ABTA study, which reported that 56% of families with children under five had taken an overseas holiday in the past year. We then calculated the average “from” cost of seat reservations across 10 major airlines. By combining the estimated number of travelling families with average seat reservation costs (based on typical family size of four), we projected a total potential spend on seat reservations by UK families. This is not an actual figure but an indicative estimate.
We also researched each airline’s policy on seating children under 12 and whether those airlines guarantee seating passengers on the same booking together.
The data was collected from 13th – 20th June 2025.
Sources
[1] BBC, ‘Airlines probed over ‘confusing’ seating policy’
[2] Which, ‘Can airlines split children from their parents? And how to sit together’
[3] BelfastLive, ‘Woman who refused to swap plane seat with child gobsmacked when mum claps back’
[4] Anxiety UK, ‘Fear of Flying’
[5] YouGov and CAA, ‘Group Flights’
[6] Travel Weekly, ‘Confusion over airline allocated seating policies sparks CAA review’
[7] ABTA, ‘Holiday Habits 2024-25’
[8] Idea Works Company, ‘Airlines Assign Big Revenue Priority to Seat Selection’
[9] U.S. Department of Transportation, ‘Biden-Harris Administration Proposes Ban on Family Seating Junk Fees Charged by Airlines’
[10] BBC, ‘The big change affecting European travel’
