On April 7, I was almost asked to disembark an Air Malta flight from Brussels because I refused to sit separately from my two underage daughters travelling with me.

I had checked-in online and was allocated three seats spread across the plane. At the airport, I pointed this out to the check-in desk and was told to speak to the cabin crew.

Once boarding was completed, the crew tried to persuade passengers to change seats.

Few wanted to do so and I was told the best the airline could offer me were two adjacent seats and the third one at the other end of the plane, which I refused.

The flight manager told me there was nothing else he could do and a ground crew member said I could either accept to sit separately from my daughters or else... I was being asked to choose between the safety of my daughters and missing the flight.

Thankfully, at the eleventh hour, a kind Belgian family asked their teenage daughters to change their places, meaning I had to rely on the spontaneous generosity of fellow passengers and not on the professionalism of the airline, supposedly in charge of our safety.

The rest of the cabin crew was extremely helpful and clearly mortified by the situation. This, however, does not absolve the airline from its responsibility.

Perhaps Air Malta would care to clarify a few things: why is it that while the airline knew months in advance that a father would be travelling with two young children (aged four and six), it did not take measures to ensure there would be three seats in a row available for them?

Under which circumstances does the company expect two very young children, whose plane ticket is linked to that of their parent because of their tender age, to sit on their own?

Does not the company consider that in case of emergency, seating two very young children separately from their parent could constitute an additional danger both to the children and to fellow passengers?