gustavmahler

Online I am unable to select seats next to each other in CE for two adults with two lap children. Is this just a bug or can we definitely not do that? A dummy booking in Y lets me select A and C, so there must be sufficient oxygen masks – unless the front rows have fewer? We may be better off having aisle seats anyway, but at least this way, we wouldn’t be in anyone else’s way.

ThatT1Feeling

Is it the same with every row you try? When we had 2 small children, we found that some rows had 4 oxygen masks per 3 seats and some only 3..

gustavmahler

Yes - I get a message every time telling me that adults with lap children cannot sit next to each other.

ThatT1Feeling

That's not good. I do remember once when Mrs TT1F was travelling with a friend who also had an under-2, that they were not allowed in the same 3 -seat row, but that was a masks restriction rather than anything else. Sorry - more than that, I'm out of ideas. Maybe you're in for a 30-min wait, listening to BA's hold music

rapidex

BA sometimes use the middle seat in CE, such as after significant disruption. I suspect you will not be able to select 2 adults and 2 children side by side for this reason. Perhaps a call to BA would sort this out.

gustavmahler

I think I might be! Just thought I'd check with the real experts here before I embark on that adventure. We will actually be four adults with four lap children (My wife ane me, our triplets, and friends of ours who also have an infant and have come along for the ride so that we can travel...).

What do you think the optimum seating for us would be anyway? Are we better off with four aisle seats? If it's a bug and I can select seats together we could do ACDF or AC/DF in 2 rows, but not sure which would be best.

albpenny

Unless you know the person in the other seat in your immediate row (eg you choose A/F and you know the person in C/D), choose four aisle seats as you may well be up and down quite a lot and it'll save you disturbing a stranger. One of my recent (and by far the worst) flights with our then 14mo, we were sitting in A/B and the person in C ended up moving about an hour into the (thankfully not full) flight as we were up and down so often (walking up/down the aisle, going to toilet to change nappy etc etc). I felt terrible for that person and in future will try to get the aisle seat to avoid that issue.

btw following this with interest as as of April/May we'll have two lap infants, albeit with 17/18 months between them, so good to know whether we can all sit together!

gustavmahler

Totally agree. I was just wondering if they did allow us to sit as pairs, would that be better than having the four aisle seats? With the aisles all four adults with babies can get out easily, but the middle seat (possibly with table) would be shared with some unsuspecting traveller in the window seat.

albpenny

If you are allowed to sit in pairs, then do that (plus you can put the middle table away and alternate letting the babies sleep on the middle seat while the adults enjoy full use of their arms). If they don't allow it, sit in the aisle seats.

gustavmahler

Just a quick update.

I called BA and got a computer says no answer. the guy was really helpful and sympathetic - he completely understood, but the system could not be overridden. I guess we can ask on board, especially if two unsuspecting pax get stuck in window seats close to infants!

If you’re wanting to avoid seeing this in action, stay away from LHR-NCE flights at the end of April and middle of May…