Travelling to JHB with our 8 year old kid

Hi there,

Recently found this forum.
This Sunday the 11th of August me, my wife and our 8 year old son are flying out to JHB (VS601).
As I have booked via a travel agency, need to take different flights, I can't seem to logon to the website and book the seats upfront.
Is there a way to book seats as I prefer to sit together or at least have my son sit next to me?
Thanx

Hi Luke and welcome
Do you have your VS booking number? (if not you should be able to get from the Travel Agent), with this you can then log in to your booking on the VS website and "request" (not actually book) your seat.

You can try speaking with the Virgin to get your booking reference, but as GFONK says the agent should be able to provide this.

The flight looks pretty quiet right now so you should have a good selection of seats to choose from. In any case, Virgin will not make you sit apart from an 8 year old I am sure - even if you wanted to

Welcome to V-Flyer BTW !

Thx Gfonk and MrDood, well just emailed the travel agent. Not sure if they will get back to me on that one.
I am not in the UK so being placed on hold on the phone to call Virgin might be an expensive thing.

I am actually quiet sure nobody would mind to sit next to our 8 year old. It seems he has build in ductape and velcro.

Just had an online chat with a Virgin representative.
What an experience! I am amazed about the speed and how it was handled, very positive up till now.

I received my reference number but ... 'but as you have more than 4 sectors in your booking you will be unable to access it online'
So what that means I don't know.
Anyway I got the seat numbers and we should be fine.

It means, for reasons known only to Virgin and their antiquated IT system, you can't manage your booking (ie do things like request seats) online because you're making four separate flights, or sectors, on the same ticket.

Are you taking a connecting flight to get to Heathrow for the Jo'burg flight - eg from Manchester or Dublin or somewhere? In which case it's 4 sectors - eg MAN-LHR, LHR-JNB, JNB-LHR & LHR-MAN.

@gumshoe

Well we are going from BRU to LHR, LHR to JHB and JHB to NLP , so that is a bit more than 4

Ah well there you go - six sectors on one ticket, apparently far too many for Virgin's systems to cope with.

That just means you have to call them to request seats - which you have and they've sorted, so job done.

As others have said, by the way, no airline should ever seat a child on their own away from at least one accompanying adult so even if you weren't able to request seats in advance, the airport ground staff would have ensured you get seats together. Virgin are normally excellent at ensuring families sit together - even if it means moving other passengers who've requested specific seats.

[Darren Wheeler]

Virgin are normally excellent at ensuring families sit together - even if it means moving other passengers who've requested specific seats.

Very true, and just look how many complaints that causes..

Hi what are the loads looking like in upper and PE for LHR to JNB for this flight please...TIA
Crizzy

W/9 S/9 H/9 K/9 for PE and J/9 for UC. From Flightstats. So pretty quiet as far as can be told.

Virgin are normally excellent at ensuring families sit together - even if it means moving other passengers who've requested specific seats.

Very true, and just look how many complaints that causes..

Not sure I get the point you're making here.

If the family wasn't split up in the first place, people wouldn't need to be moved about.

If they are split up, an airline is legally bound to ensure the minor is not sat alone, and I think there are other restrictions as well.

If you mean trouble caused by people refusing to move to help the crew out in order to get a family sat togehter, then I agree. I've personally witnessed unbelievable behaviour from people stubornly refusing to move t get young families sitting nearby, and not even listening to reason and that does indeed cause trouble as other passengers get upset as well.

If you mean trouble caused by people refusing to move to help the crew out in order to get a family sat togehter, then I agree. I've personally witnessed unbelievable behaviour from people stubornly refusing to move t get young families sitting nearby, and not even listening to reason and that does indeed cause trouble as other passengers get upset as well.

I agree 100%
It's all about respect and being flexible. I've flown a bit on my own and when asked for people to sit together I've always allowed this. Nothing worse than a partner/friend sitting somewhere else.

@Crizzy probably you will see a family of 3, well that's us