Family Seating Outrage At Airlines Goes Viral—But It’s Passengers Causing The Problem


There’s a discussion blowing up online about family seating on planes, triggered by a woman who received seat assignments away from her kids on two different flights and airlines. It’s turned political. But there are some basic misunderstandings about what airlines try to do here – and what the responsibility of the passenger is. That’s a problem, and air travel is complicated. I think passengers need to do a better job educating themselves and advocting for themselves, and airlines can do a better job making these processes more legible.

Biden Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg comes in and says ‘the government was going to fix this’ but that mantle hasn’t been carried forward by the Trump administration.

  • In fact, airlines already have policies accommodating families sitting together
  • The Biden administration wasn’t going to go much farther than those
  • It’s the reality on the ground of available seats on full flights that creates problems. DOT regulations were’t going to solve that.
  • And it wasn’t enough of a priority of Buttigieg’s DOT and the Biden administration to push forward early enough and fast enough to complete it before their term was up – in fact slow-walking policies like this was a tactic to help them with re-election (middle class pocket book issues).

The question of whether to legally require airlines to seat families together is being framed as pro- and anti-family and in fact for or against having kids and growing the population. When, in fact, there are already legally enforceable requirements to seat passengers together because severn major airlines have added it to their customer service plans, voluntarily assumed obligations that are enforceable!

Here’s what to understand about families sitting together.

  • You can assign seats when you buy a ticket. If you buy basic economy tickets, you don’t pick your specific seats the airline picks them for you. But if you have a young child on the reservation, airlines like American and United will pick seats for you that are together. Family seating is actually a trump over basic economy rules and you get seats together for free.
  • The problem is generally with passengers who don’t get seat assignments when they book, or that book late, and so there aren’t seats together. Airlines don’t forcibly move other passengers to accommodate family seating requests. When flights cancel and passengers rebook, there may not be seats together on the next flight.
  • Another issue is traveling with teenagers. The age of the child matters for whether airliens will give out free seats together. Some will do it for 12 and under, others 15 and under, but parents sometimes complain about not getting seats together with their 16 year old.

American Airlines will automatically search for families traveling on the same reservation and try to seat them together – even on basic economy fares and when no seats have been assigned or paid for. They do this for families traveling with children under 15.

  • They ask you to book everyone in the same reservation, but still offer to have reservations noted if they are separate.
  • You can choose seats together or skip seat selection if only paid options are available and you don’t want to pay. Even Basic Economy passengers without seat assignments will have seats assigned together if traveling as a family. (If there aren’t seats available for the entire party to sit together, they’ll ensure at least one adult is next to children under 15 on the reservation.)

American’s commitment doesn’t apply in the event there simply aren’t adjacent seats available at time of booking (they aren’t promising to remove people from their pre-existing seat assignments, though families can still get help at the gate) and it doesn’t apply in the event of an aircraft swap to a smaller plane.

United tries to do this with children under 12, and they will even allow free flight changes with no fare difference when there aren’t adjacent seats available prior to travel – even on basic economy fares.

Ultimately, though, passengers need to make sure that the flights they choose have seats open together. And they should be the same type of seats that they’re eligible for based on their purchase. Don’t expect extra legroom seats together when buying basic economy, but free assigned standard seats shouldn’t be a problem.

Don’t rely on the IT to work correctly, though it’s designed to. Watch your reservation. If it doesn’t happen on its own, call. Airlines accommodate eligible families seating together but the passenger has responsibility to pick flights with open seats together and actually ask for those seats!

During irregular operations – flight cancellations, aircraft change – seat assignments get messed up. You may need to change flights to stay seated together. Or you may need to deal with this on board.

The best thing to do is to ask passengers around you to trade seats (try to have at least one ‘better’ seat to offer like an aisle or at least a window). Nobody wants to sit next to your kids! Ask a flight attendant for assistance with this if you need help.

Everyone is acting like airlines won’t seat families together when they will. And they do this even though it undermines their price discrimination tools. There are edge cases, times that the passengers are to blame, or when circumstances throw a monkey wrench in (or times where families are complaining about not being seated together with kids eligible for drivers licenses).

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Family Seating Outrage At Airlines Goes Viral—But It’s Passengers Causing The Problem
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Igor Jeuhan