EU to ban airlines from charging parents to sit with their children

4 months ago by CAVOK to c/europe

The EU's reform of passenger rights agreed on June 12 stopped short of more divisive changes. Read more at straitstimes.com. Read more at straitstimes.com.
Sibbo 32 points 4 months ago

European airlines are so cheap. Everything that makes a flight less suffering costs extra. I flew with Turkish airlines once, and they just include a meal for everyone. It's so much less stressful to fly when you don't have to worry about food.

path: 0 24235719, hotness: undefined, score: 32, children: 16
Jajcus 20 points 4 months ago

There are many different European airlines, not all that cheap.

path: 0 24235719 24236385, hotness: undefined, score: 20, children: 3
Sibbo 4 points 4 months ago

Lufthansa, Finnair, SAS all don't serve meals for everyone.

path: 0 24235719 24236385 24237453, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 2
jenesaisquoi 13 points 4 months ago

I mean if you fly for 1-2h a meal is overkill

path: 0 24235719 24236385 24237453 24238210, hotness: undefined, score: 13, children: 0
kevinsky 0 points 4 months ago

Why would you need a meal on a 1 to 3 hour flight?

Honestly I don't get the need for meals full stop, even crossing the Atlantic.

Airplane food is, at best, extremely mid. I prefer to just do a fast in the flight and get something local once on the destination.

Especially when i'm heading to a place with great food like Mexico i see little purpose in eating mid flight. And it's not like you need the calories just sitting in that chair either.

path: 0 24235719 24236385 24237453 24276627, hotness: undefined, score: 0, children: 0
blackbeans 13 points 4 months ago

There are many airlines like Turkish airlines in Europe. You are talking about the budget airlines. Those are extremely cheap but do not provide comfort and charge extra for every little thing.

path: 0 24235719 24236951, hotness: undefined, score: 13, children: 6
Sibbo 8 points 4 months ago

You mean budget airlines such as Lufthansa?

path: 0 24235719 24236951 24237459, hotness: undefined, score: 8, children: 5
placebo 1 point 4 months ago
path: 0 24235719 24236951 24237459 24242608, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 2
Sibbo 3 points 4 months ago

On your typical 2 hour or so flights, the only thing you get is a piece of chocolate. You have to pay extra for a meal.

path: 0 24235719 24236951 24237459 24242608 24246731, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 1
arrow74 0 points 4 months ago

Lufthansa is considered budget? TIL, the one time I flew with them it was a short flight, seemed nicer than my experiences with other budget airlines

path: 0 24235719 24236951 24237459 24244303, hotness: undefined, score: 0, children: 1
Sibbo 2 points 4 months ago

No it's not, that's the point.

path: 0 24235719 24236951 24237459 24244303 24246718, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
Mosfar 3 points 4 months ago

That's how they sold tickets for less than 30€. If you included all the "extras" similar to a normal flagship airline, you would pay the same or even more on the low costs

path: 0 24235719 24236421, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
Fleppensteijn 2 points 4 months ago

I flew to Asia a few times and there's always a few meals included. But they were always Asian airlines.

Last time I flew back with a Norwegian airline and I didn't get to eat at all for the entire way and I was not prepared for that.

path: 0 24235719 24238636, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 3
outstanding_bond 2 points 4 months ago

I think I remember flying Norwegian from the US to Europe once (~a decade ago), and it was budget but still had meals included. However I believe they’ve since gone bankrupt, and there’s a new airline called Norse Atlantic that is ultra budget and won’t feed you unless you purchase meals beforehand.

But with a little bit of homework the ultra budget flights can be nice. I did a Paris to Los Angeles flight on French Bee a few years ago and the base fare was under $300, so I didn’t sweat pre-buying seat selection and meals for another 50 or $60.

path: 0 24235719 24238636 24241593, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0
roserose56 1 point 4 months ago

I flew with air Portugal and I had a meal, same with Aegean airlines. Airlines differ.

path: 0 24235719 24238636 24242794, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 1
Fleppensteijn 1 point 4 months ago

Sure, but after like 6 flights or so, I just kind of assumed there's always food when you have such a long flight

path: 0 24235719 24238636 24242794 24243128, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
rollin 13 points 4 months ago

I quickly looked into this the other day when the first articles on it appeared. IIRC there's a regulation that states children under a certain age must be accompanied by an adult - and that includes sitting right next to them. Ryanair's policy was to charge the adult the standard "seat booking" extra. Up to 2 kids would then be given seats next to them without additional fees.

So the problem seems to be that if you're travelling with small children, you *must* pay to book yourself a seat.

Ryanair were protesting about any change, no surprise there of course, but I suspect they don't really have to waive the booking fee for the adult, rather they could just allow them to not pay to book a seat, and make sure they are allocated one randomly with their children next to them.

In any case, I'm left wondering if this can be a worthwhile way for the EU to spend its time. Given how much it costs for any large administrative body to do anything, this really doesn't seem like it should be a big priority.

When you are a parent, there are so many extra costs everywhere, that saving a couple of euros on seat bookings a couple of times a year isn't going to make any significant difference.

path: 0 24238409, hotness: undefined, score: 13, children: 1
Ardyvee 7 points 4 months ago

While I get what you are saying, I'm not entirely sure where else could the people focused on consumer/passenger rights be focused on, considering it was introduced as part of a series of other reforms around this particular form of travel which millions of Europeans use. It isn't like this was a whole procedure brought about just for the seating of kids, either.

path: 0 24238409 24241025, hotness: undefined, score: 7, children: 0
poopkins 3 points 4 months ago path: 0 24258825, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0
europe
europe

@feddit.org

login for more options
12172
12145
4780

News and information from Europe 🇪🇺

(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)

Rules

  1. This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
  2. No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
  3. Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
  4. No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism. We follow German law; don't question the statehood of Israel.
  5. Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
  6. If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
  7. Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in other communities.
  8. Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
  9. No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
  10. Always provide context with posts: Don't post uncontextualized images or videos, and don't start discussions without giving some context first.

(This list may get expanded as necessary.)

Posts that link to the following sources will be removed

  • on any topic: Al Mayadeen, brusselssignal:eu, citjourno:com, europesays:com, Breitbart, Daily Caller, Fox, GB News, geo-trends:eu, news-pravda:com, OAN, RT, sociable:co, any AI slop sites (when in doubt please look for a credible imprint/about page), change:org (for privacy reasons), archive:is,ph,today (their JS DDoS websites)
  • on Middle-East topics: Al Jazeera
  • on Hungary: Euronews

Unless they're the only sources, please also avoid The Sun, Daily Mail, any "thinktank" type organization, and non-Lemmy social media (incl. Substack). Don't link to Twitter directly, instead use xcancel.com. For Reddit, use old:reddit:com

(Lists may get expanded as necessary.)

Ban lengths, etc.

We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.

If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 7 or 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.

If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the admin that applied the rule (check modlog first to find who was it.)

go to feed...