It is often seen and experienced at the airports that family members are allocated different seats on the flights if they decline to pay for the preferred seats. This, however, can be dangerous for passengers on the flights.
Some low-cost airlines have been identified for assigning family members travelling together different seats and at times in different rows which could be even way apart from each other unless they pay additional for seats to be given together.
According to the reports, it was found that in case of an emergency landing or evacuation, the lives of all passengers can be at risk, as families start searching for their members.
A report published on the Emergency Evacuation of Commercial Passenger Aeroplanes studies a dozen cases and came up with some recommendations for the betterment of the process.
The “passenger seat allocation” section advises: “Operators should not charge family members for sitting together. This is especially important…if an emergency situation occurs such as an evacuation, decompression or air turbulence when the assistance and supervision of an adult are likely to be of paramount importance.”
“Group members who are separated might seek each other out in an emergency evacuation, which might have a serious impact on passenger flow to emergency exits. Children accompanied by an adult should ideally be seated in the same row as the adult. In twin-aisle aeroplanes, children and accompanying adults should not be separated by more than one aisle. When this is not possible, then children should not be seated more than one row forward or aft from accompanying adults.”