Originally Posted by
KARFA
With all due respect,
CIHY has confirmed what the BA position is on several occasions on this board, so either BA is in violation of CAA rules - I think that is unlikely - or they know the rules and the CAA have no issue with what BA do on this. I personally would advise anyone to be very cautious posting on a public forum the accusation that BA are clear breach. In fact the actual guidance document from the CAA (rather than the simplified guidance on a web page) does mention taxi, take off and landing and distinguishes those phases of flight from the others. This is in relation to occupation, but if there was some risk during the other phases of flight it would cover all phases. There doesn't seem to be any requirement for emergency exit rows to be occupied by eligible people, or indeed occupied at all, outside taxi, take-off and landing phases of flight.
https://publicapps.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAP%20789.pdf see page 347
But as you point out, the extract you post simply refer to the seats directly next to the emergency door having to be occupied (full stop) during the periods that you mention as opposed to being empty. Or are you referring to a different section? By contrast, the extract that I mention is about who is not allowed to sit next to those emergency exits. I see no contradiction between the two, and certainly no way to assume that the fact that seats next to emergency exits must not be left empty during the three phases that you mention invalidates in any way the guidelines that the CAA provides on who is not supposed to sit there on their website. The sum of the two pieces of information still come up to the same result: that based on those documents alone (again, maybe you are right and there is something else, but not in that extract) that children, passengers with impaired mobility, etc would on the face of it not be allowed to sit in emergency exits at any time.
Now again, if there is contrary guideline from the CAA, I'm more than happy to see it, but that is not it. I can only restate the same thing: based on the information provided, if one saw children in an exit row at any point during the flight, it would not be illogical to complain to the CAA who can then consider and decide whether this is in breach of their guidelines or not and deal with the complaint accordingly. I'm not sure about the basis of the warning - you would basically say: "I saw children sat in an emergency row during cruise on flight BA xxx on xx/xx/2018. From your website, I thought that children under the age of 12 were not allowed at all in those seats. Is this incorrect?" You are not substituting yourself to the CAA, but conversely, just assuming that this must be compliant because either crews or BA allow it would seem to me a big assumption to make. It is not unusual for any company to do things that it thinks are absolutely right and for the regulators to conclude that they misunderstood their stipulations, I am not saying that this is what is happening here if, again, someone has evidence that the CAA has ruled that such situation is in fact allowable, just that at this stage I do not see any document confirming that it is whilst the only document that actually addresses the issue suggests that it is not.