You’ve probably “been there,” in one way or another.
- You’re traveling with your child, you’ve not paid to sit together, and have needed to ask the gate agent or flight attendant to rearrange people so you can be next to each other
- You did what you needed to ensure you and your kid would be next to each other, but your flight was cancelled or otherwise rearranged, your best laid plans were ruined and now 4-year-old is in 14A, while you’re in 27D.
- You’ve been asked to move your seat because someone was traveling with a child, and they either didn’t pay to sit together, or “the system” broke them up somehow, and you were one of the people asked to move so they could be next to each other.
This generally wasn’t a problem before airlines discovered they could make more money by charging people to choose their airplane seats ahead of time. But once it cost “extra” to make sure your party had seats next to each other or the computer would assign them for you, things changed drastically.
In order for the child(ren) to sit with an adult and not pay for the “privilege,” it meant a game of musical chairs on the plane. Read: Who’s willing to switch seats with the parent/guardian or the kid(s)? Sometimes it worked out fine. Other times they couldn’t get people to switch and then, you’d read stories like the guy who was convicted for touching a girl inappropriately while her mother was stuck sitting several rows away.
That situation went on for several years, but the Department of Transportation (DOT) received ongoing complaints from both parents who needed to ask others to switch seats and those who were asked to switch.
In March of 2023, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, put the word out that parents shouldn’t have to pay to sit with their kids on flights.
“Parents traveling with young kids should be able to sit together without an airline forcing them to pay junk fees,” Buttigieg said in a statement, adding that the department had been pressing airlines to make those guarantees. “All airlines should do this promptly, even as we move forward to develop a rule establishing this as a requirement across the board.”
At the same time, the Department of Transportation (DOT) introduced a dashboard that allowed travelers to see which airlines made it their business to sit families together for free, and which didn’t.
At the 6-month mark
At the 6-month mark, September 2023, the list of carriers committed to fee-free family seating was pretty sad. It included:
- Alaska
- American
- Frontier
- jetBlue
It’s been a year
It’s now been a year since the DOT’s dashboard began. Know how many more airlines have been added to the list?
None. Not even one.
These are the guilty parties:
- Allegiant
- Delta
- Hawaiian
- Southwest
- Spirit
- United
Or, as shown on the Airline Customer Service Dashboard:
To specify, to date, these airlines have no guarantee that a child aged 13 and under will be able to sit next to an accompanying adult “at no additional cost for all fare types.”
What do these airlines say?
Allegiant
“Seat Reservations: While we will do our best to accommodate families, the availability of seats together cannot be guaranteed.
To ensure that your party is seated together, we recommend reserving seats when you book your travel, or by logging in to Manage Travel or during online or mobile check in.”
So they will do their best, but by the way, reserving seats costs extra on Allegiant.
Delta
“Delta strives to seat family members together upon request. If you are unable to obtain seat assignments together for your family using delta.com or the Fly Delta mobile app, please contact reservations to review available seating options.”
“Striving” is not the same as “guaranteeing.”
Hawaiian
“If you are traveling with an infant or child, please contact our Reservations department to make your infant or child reservation.”
The “Reservations department” page says you should call them. Meanwhile, their website says that if you get Main Cabin Basic seats (Hawaiian’s equivalent of Basic Economy), you can’t pre-select your seats and will be assigned seats at the gate. If they had a system in place to guarantee children could sit with their adults, wouldn’t that be on their website, instead of having to call?
Southwest
Southwest, of course, has open seating.
“If you are traveling with a child six years old or younger:
- Up to two adults traveling with a child six years old or younger may board during Family Boarding, which occurs after the “A” group has boarded and before the “B” group begins boarding.”
If you are traveling with a child age seven to 13 years old:
- If you need and request assistance, Southwest will reasonably endeavor to seat a child next to one accompanying passenger (14 and older) to the extent practicable and at no additional cost.
- Families can speak to Gate Agents or Flight Attendants to request assistance.”
Just like Delta’s “striving,” “reasonably endeavoring” is not the same as “guaranteeing.”
Spirit
Spirit’s website says nothing about traveling with children, period. If you want to sit together, pay to choose your seats, suckers!
United
“Families with children under 12 can book Economy and Basic Economy seats next to each other for free. Sometimes, seat assignments change because of last minute bookings or unscheduled aircraft changes. If this happens on your flight and your family is separated, you can switch to another flight with availability in the same cabin for free. We won’t charge you for any fare differences.”
So United’s rules (which they introduced right around the time that the DOT’s dashboard started) are only for kids age 11 and under, not 13 like the DOT says. And although, to their credit, they let kids and parents sit next to each other for free, if something messes up and they’re no longer sitting together, don’t worry; they’ll just put y’all on a different plane. I guess if you’re lucky, it’ll even be on the same day. But they won’t charge you for that. #rolleyes
So now what?
Buttigieg has suggested that if airlines didn’t step up and make it easy and free for families to sit together on a plane, the DOT would take the next step. Buttigieg submitted a bill in early 2023 to make it mandatory that airlines not charge family seating fees for children thirteen and younger, but the bill has yet to be passed.
That was a year ago but there hasn’t been a whole lot of chatter about it since. Sigh.
If you’re dissatisfied with an experience related to family seating, you can file a complaint with the airline or DOT. Click here to file a complaint with the DOT.
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6 comments
I’m mixed about this since I remember I was 7 years old and my family missed our flight connection in Atlanta to Orlando back in the 90s. We were rebooked on the next flight but we weren’t able to sit next to each other. I sat by myself and survived the 40 minute flight. The only thing I remember was the stranger next to me helped me tighten my seat belt.
I understand other 7 year olds may need assistance but I didn’t feel like I did. Personally I think if you’re age 9 or older, you’ll be ok sitting away from your parents for short domestic flights.
Then again, my experience was from the 90s before 9/11 and that was a different world back then. (sigh).
Very much a different world, unfortunately. You’d need to take the maturity of the kid into consideration. And, of course, cross your fingers regarding whoever is sitting next to said kid.
Children were not allowed to fly international by themselves.We flew on Sprit with my granddaughter. Flew on 4 different planes. Paid. For our seats and every flight she was moved because of weight. She weighed 50 lbs. it was a fight every time. But she did not move. Spirit sucks
Delta Reservations Agent here. I receive many calls every day for just this situation. There are two rows in the back of the plane that are blocked for airport issue or thar a res agent can help you get. Notice that it said to call reservations if you could not do it on the app. I would not wait until the day of the flight.
!
And please understand that equipment changes do occur and that can cause problems with seats. Delta does not go out of its way to keep families apart.
I was on an Alaskan Airlines flight from Kauai to Seattle with my 8 yr. old grandson, his mother and a friend. We called the airline to see if they could help us get two seats together. They told us it would have to be done at the gate. There was nobody at the desk. We saw a couple of attendants in Alaska uniforms so we asked them. They were so rude. Told us people paid to sit in their specific seats and why would we expect someone to move. It was a red eye flight and my grandson fell asleep on the ladies shoulder next to him. Luckily, she was very nice about it. Alaska states right on their website they guarantee a minor child will be seated with an adult in their party. So much for their guarantee!!
The “unbundled” business model of the ULCCs provides a discounted base fare to which pax can add options that are important to them. One of those is selecting seats. If that is important to a family they should choose it. It’s not a “junk” fee any more than paying to check a bag or paying for a drink or snack. Under their model, why should a pax that doesn’t want any of those options pay for it? The full-service carriers began offering these discounted fares to compete with the ULCCs. The discounted fare plus the cost of an assigned seat is not more than the regular economy fares that include an assigned seat; thus, the pax is not really paying more for a seat. The government could ultimately require the airlines to offer “free” seat assignments…fares will go up and pax will end up paying more for them anyway.