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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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. [/quote]

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.[/quote]

This is a very well thought out response.

I recently flew a bunch with my elementary aged kids on TAP and SATA airlines. SATA especially excelled at treating families with children with dignity. They seat family members together and give them priority boarding status without extra cost, and the best part is as soon as we reach cruising altitude, the flight attendants walk around and hand out kids meals to all the child passengers, BEFORE they start the regular beverage services that could take a long time reaching some of the passengers seated in the back of the plane. [/quote]

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