One in two people has experienced the stress of boarding a plane only to find that their seats are far from those of their travelling companions, whether they are family, friends, partners or fellow nervous flyers. While this issue could once be resolved at check-in or just before boarding, nowadays it usually means paying extra when booking or before departure.
According to a survey of 1,050 UK adults conducted by Radical Storage in June 2025, the practice is common: 61.3% of Brits have paid extra to sit next to someone they were travelling with. The same survey found that airlines such as easyJet, TUI Airways, and Virgin Atlantic charge families up to £120 to guarantee seats together.
In the UK alone, this equates to an estimated £22,538,880 spent on seat reservations by families with young children each year. This situation is made possible due to a lack of legal requirements forcing airlines to seat families together, leaving carriers free to profit from it.
Over a quarter of respondents said they would pay more than £30 per flight to ensure they could sit with their companion or group.
Virgin Atlantic, which does not guarantee that a child will be seated with an accompanying adult, only ‘as close as possible’, charges £30 per person for pre-selected seats, or £120 for a family of four. Etihad Airways has a similar policy, offering seats either ‘as close as possible’ or ‘next to an adult’, at £24 per person (£96 per family). EasyJet applies the same minimal ‘close to an adult’ rule but charges just £2 per person – still a fee for something that most passengers expect as standard.
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) advises that children should be seated either next to or, at least, in the same row as family members on a plane, if only for safety reasons. In the event of an emergency landing, passengers will try to reach their loved ones, which could delay the evacuation process if they are not seated together. However, this is guidance, not law.
Nearly half of those surveyed (48.9%) think this is unacceptable. While 91.8% would gladly swap seats to let families sit together, 8.2% would not do so under any circumstances.
Aside from the financial costs, there is an added psychological cost to families who are separated on the plane. Over a third of respondents (35%) said that being seated apart from family or friends would be ‘very stressful’ or ‘unacceptable’, while 54.6% said they would be ‘slightly annoyed’. Only 10.5% said they wouldn’t mind. For some, such as the one in ten UK adults who suffer from a fear of flying and need to sit near someone they know for reassurance, the separation could be particularly distressing.
To avoid this distressing situation, 21.9% of travellers only book with airlines that guarantee to seat them together. 18.3% always pay for seat selection, and 25.3% book earlier to have a better choice of seats. Meanwhile, 16.5% have not changed their habits, 10.5% are not concerned, and 7.5% avoid flying with companions altogether.
Changes may be on the way. In 2024, the Biden administration proposed a ‘junk fee’ ban to prohibit airlines from making families pay to sit together on flights, and in June this year, the EU voted to ban seat selection fees for children under 12.
