Do people really pay $50 each way per person for seat selection??

[Anonymous]

I never pay for seats. If my family isn’t seated together I just sit down next to the rest of my family with both of my toddlers who 9/10 are hysterical because boarding is very over-stimulating and welcome the person whose seat I stole to the seat they paid for or offer them my real seat far away. Oddly enough, they have never wanted to sit by me.

[Anonymous]

I don't and it makes me so mad that the airline will purposely put my husband and I in the same row and then my young child away from us in the back of the plane. It's absolutely ridiculous that this is allowed and not illegal. Thankfully everyone switches seats with us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have small children and don’t pay. Happy to get a break from my 6 year old for three hours. He’s old enough to sit alone.

Most airlines won’t charge for you to be seated with your child under 11. I hope you’re trolling us, because there are kids who’ve been sexually assaulted on flights and I’d never leave my kids alone on a plane.

They do not sit you with your child anymore. It's outrageous and a lawsuit waiting to happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't and it makes me so mad that the airline will purposely put my husband and I in the same row and then my young child away from us in the back of the plane. It's absolutely ridiculous that this is allowed and not illegal. Thankfully everyone switches seats with us.

why don't you just have one parent sit with your kid and then the other in the back of the plane? I don't think the airline should assign the seats the way you're talking about, but this seems like a pretty solvable problem.

[Anonymous]

If you don't want to pay for seat assignments, you need to protest in a way that doesn't dump the problem on flight attendants and fellow passengers. Flight attendants don't get paid for their flight hours until the plane starts taxing, and passengers who did pay shouldn't be the ones bearing the brunt of bad airline policies or your desire to protest. Send them a letter, refuse to fly and drive instead, take an airline that doesn't make you pay if that's an option, sign a petition, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I never pay for seats. If my family isn’t seated together I just sit down next to the rest of my family with both of my toddlers who 9/10 are hysterical because boarding is very over-stimulating and welcome the person whose seat I stole to the seat they paid for or offer them my real seat far away. Oddly enough, they have never wanted to sit by me.

So, you are the person that everyone hates. And who make it difficult for the people who are in that situation through no fault of their own, through flight cancellations and rescheduling, to swap seats because no one wants to reward your behavior. Congratulations, I guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I never pay for seats. If my family isn’t seated together I just sit down next to the rest of my family with both of my toddlers who 9/10 are hysterical because boarding is very over-stimulating and welcome the person whose seat I stole to the seat they paid for or offer them my real seat far away. Oddly enough, they have never wanted to sit by me.

If this is in fact real, do you think this is something you should be bragging about?

Good intentioned suggestion: keep that stuff private. And then you won't get the beating about being a bad citizen and setting a poor example for your kids that you will undoubtedly get here for the next several days.

[Anonymous]

I have done it when I've used miles for the ticket to get a seat with more legroom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a time when seat selection was always included in your fare. The earlier you booked, the better your odds of getting a decent selection. But it is more important to nickel and dime customers and treat them like cattle.

Yes, things used to be different. So what? Two things can be true:

- Airlines are responsible for the current system, because they want to maximize revenue.
- It is obnoxious, entitled, and yes, cheap to decline to book seats together and then expect other passengers to move to accommodate you, particularly when those passengers may have paid to select their seats. You are not engaged in some act of protest against corporate greed, you are trying to get over on your fellow passengers because you want to save a few bucks.

No need to be triggered. The old way was better. I never said anything about begging for someone else’s paid seat. This was rarely a problem before. You get what you get and you don’t get upset.

You seem pretty upset.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve flown a lot with little kids over the past ten several years. There have been many changes and some airlines do their seating and ticketing differently than others. It can be tricky to keep up with. Now with the ticket classes of basic economy etc, it can be confusing to people, understandably. I would never ask someone to change seats to sit by another adult, but there have been multiple situations where I was separated from my children, including as young as two, and I think it is a terrible policy to not automatically seat families with young kids together. Before someone says well I should have paid in advance, my experiences included times where I didn’t purchase seats together fast enough, and when I traveled last minute for a funeral and there were not seats available. It is depressing to require families with young kids that may be stretching to pay for flights to shell out more than the ticket to sit together. It is obviously the right thing for families and the airlines and everyone should understand this.

Anyway, now it seems the airlines have figured it out to save the last rows for families and will seat you together without an extra cost. This seems to be the best way they can handle it. I just booked flights for two of my kids and myself on United and we were able to buy basic economy and sit together in the very last row. I’m fine with this, as it is better than paying an extra $600 (four legs) to sit by my four and six year olds.

A sane post.

Wanting to sit next to your small child on an airplane is functionally different from wanting a seat by a window or on an aisle or near the front of the plane or in an exit row or bulkhead. A seat next to a small child is not a desirable thing of high value to the average airline customer. It is a *necessary* thing that is of value only to the parent of the child (and the child). Treating these as equal is a strange sort of mental gymnastics that ignores very basic things about society (like the fact that small children are in greater need of supervision and help than other people). To me it is like telling someone who is helping a person with a physical or mental disability that they can not be accommodated with seating next to the person they are caring for (which would violate ADA rules). It is a callous and anti-social position.

Asking families to pay extra to sit next to young children as though sitting next your young child so that you may care for and help them is a privilege for which a person should have to pay is similarly callous and bizarre.

This was a problem created by airlines that the airlines are now resolving but it has been very eye-opening to see how many people quickly seized on the attitude that parents are "entitled" or "cheap" for expecting that they will be seated next to minor children on a plane. It's crazy how quickly many people acclimated to the idea that sitting next to your own child so that you can feed and entertain and reassure them is a commodity that it is reasonable for an airline to charge people for. Dystopian.

I don't agree with the bolded - you're looking at it from the wrong direction. There's not an upcharge for parents to sit next to their kids. Rather, the airlines have decided that all passengers need to pay (either in upcharges or through a higher seat class) if they want to choose their seats or be guaranteed to sit next to their traveling companions. Parents, however, feel that they should be exempt from those charges - everyone else can pay, but they shouldn't have too. I simply don't agree that families should be given preferential rates.

But it absolutely is an upcharge for parents to sit next to their kids because parents are saying that they are fine getting a less desirable seat (middle seat or last row or right next to the bathroom) in order to sit next to their child. But the people paying to select their seats care very much where their seat is and are doing so in order to select a window or aisle or bulkhead or exit row or closer to the front or over the wing or whatever. Consistently when you ask people if they pay to to select a seat they will say they do so in order to get a better seat but they don't care about sitting next to a travel companion UNLESS that travel companion is a child.

So yes this is absolutely a burden on families with young kids who have to pay an extra charge not to get a better seat (by nature of how airline seating works at least some of the seats selected will be inferior middle seats that normally no one would ever choose to pay extra for) but just to sit next to a kid who will need assistance during the flight.

And this is also why airlines can easily resolve this issue by setting aside undesirable seats like those at the back of the plane or in larger planes center middle seats for families and only releasing these seats for pre-selection once the plane is fully booked and they know how many minor children they will need to accommodate. This impacts you not at all as I guarantee you are not paying extra to get a middle seat in the last row of the airplane.

It's really not. Everyone has to pay to select their seats. The reasons for that are irrelevant - it can because you want a window, or an aisle, or want to sit next to your traveling companion. What you're saying is that parents shouldn't charged to select their seats, while everyone else is - including the couple who wants to sit together. I simply don't agree.

It's really not equivalent. Other passengers don't benefit from a couple being seated together, but a passenger seated next a young child separated from their parent isn't likely to have a pleasant flight.

This isn’t true at all. I’ve sat next to a number of really delightful children in my time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I never pay for seats. If my family isn’t seated together I just sit down next to the rest of my family with both of my toddlers who 9/10 are hysterical because boarding is very over-stimulating and welcome the person whose seat I stole to the seat they paid for or offer them my real seat far away. Oddly enough, they have never wanted to sit by me.

You’re an azzhole, and this won’t work in a couple of years.