It’s Been A Year & These Airlines Still Don’t Let Kids Sit With Their Parents

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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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary