Hotcarl

Have a flight in November HNL-MSP. Booked in January in paid First Lie-flat. Checked my seats again like a do every other week and see that we are now unassigned and there are no seats together. Normally ho-hum, but I am traveling with a 10 month old 4 year old and 6 year old so the seats I picked were important and booked well in advance.
Called the diamond line and was told, that they switched planes 7 days ago (but it's the same 9 row lie-flat configuration though) and it should have put us back in our same seats, but sorry, it screwed up nothing we can do, try the gate.
Thoughts on a solution or are we just beholden to the gate agent or the kindness of travelers switching?

TTT

I can't offer a direct solution, but I would suggest using the ExperFlyer seat alert function. It is free (for one alert) and can be setup to send you an alert when any adjacent seats are available.

Are you traveling with another adult? If so, I would also suggest selecting seats that would be easy to swap. For example, if on the 767 choose 2 B and 2 C seats, which should be easy to swap to at least get two pairs together while on-board.

Carl Johnson

OP should do what you say here, and also quit worrying because it is going to be the easiest thing in the world to get other passengers to swap with you in this situation.

Hotcarl

Thanks for the replies. It is an A330 with The pod configuration and we are unassigned.

BusTrav8yrs

How were you able to book Jan of 2016 when you can't book a flight more than 331 days out?

Hotcarl

Thanks for pointing that out. Fixed

flyerCO

HUACA. You'll get an agent at some point that understands this was a automatic reseating error.

Do want to point out that you can't use child seats in the First Class/Delta Onr cabin on A330. Thus if you paid for a seat for him he won't be able to use it.

acrophobia

You are correct that child seats are not allowed in D1. However, child seats are merely recommended for children under 40 pounds, not required, so technically the 4 year old and 6 year old can use their seats. I've seen kids in D1 in that age range without car seats and it worked out fine.

The 10 month old is obviously a completely different situation. He will clearly not be capable of sitting alone in a D1 seat, even if it is technically allowed. I suggest having him as a lap child. My wife and I have done that in D1 a number of times. It always worked out fine for us.

acrophobia

One other thing: the "no car seats in D1" rule is a Delta policy. The FAA says car seats are fine in that cabin as long as the airbags can be deactivated. At least one poster on here reported success in convincing the FAs to allow them to use a car seat in D1 upon pointing this out and drawing FA attention to certain language on the seatbelt. I've never attempted this before, but mentioning it FYI.

jdrtravel

It is very family-unfriendly that DL does not have a policy of allowing car seats and a way to deactivate the airbags that all FA's are trained to do.

MSPeconomist

You do realize, don't you, that your aircraft will have a 1-2-1 configuration with individual seat pods so that you're quite far from other seats. Moreover, there are solid dividers in the center, between the two adjacent seats, so that you can't go from one aisle to the other through those center seats, even if both are occupied by your small children. Think carefully about whether you'll be able to see your kids from your seat and note that you won't be able to assist them in any way without getting out of your own seat.

audio-nut

True but it's also very business friendly.

Hotcarl

Quite true. I have flown this config 1-2-1 with my family before. We sit in the 2 middles back to back. Each parent next to a child and on staggered aisles. That way one parent can easily assist each child for bathroom runs/overhead bins and one is next to(can lean in and look) to the other child. 10 month old will be in lap.
My problem is now we are scattered. Try day of to arrange that at the gate or onboard when seats were selected at just about 330 days out on an empty plane.
Deltas response "yeah our IT messed up and should have put you in your same seats, there is nothing we can do", Is not an acceptable response in my opinion. Someone is going to get screwed, they should have a time stamp showing when I booked and selected seats.

jdrtravel

I agree that it is not acceptable for parents to be separated from children when the tickets was booked in advanced and seats together were confirmed. The good news is that, when given the option of sitting next to a 4 year old or swapping seats, especially in a all-aisle access cabin, the choice is rather easy. Were you in coach this would be a different story.

3Cforme

There's more to it than that. Seats can't be angled off the centerline. See post #33 .

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/amer...e-seats-3.html