Do Airlines Have to Seat Parents Next to Kids?
Verbal spats between entitled parents and other airline passengers have been going viral online. These parents often expect other passengers to give their seats up so that their children can be seated beside them for free.
If a parent requests another person’s paid seat, can the airlines force the other passenger to vacate their seat? In this clip, a furious passenger is being asked by the crew to give his seat away to another child.
Short Answer: Generally, no
It goes without saying that whoever pays for the seat has the right to keep the seat. The parents are It goes without saying that whoever pays for the seat has the right to keep the seat. The parents are normally at fault for choosing to seat their children farther away from them.
If the person who has rights over the seat is asked to give their seat up for a child, they can refuse the request. Even the airline’s crew generally wouldn’t facilitate seat changes. The logic goes both ways—if the parent pays for the airline seat, then there shouldn’t be any problems.
Family-Friendly Airlines
As an alternative, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) listed a few airlines that offer fee-free seating for families. The DOT endorsed five companies as fee-free for families: Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Frontier Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, and JetBlue Airlines. Despite the offer, fee-free family seating comes with several limitations outlined by the DOT.
According to the DOT, the following conditions must be met to avail of the fee-free family seating:
- Child and accompanying adult are on the same reservation;
- Adjacent seats are available at the time of booking in the selected class of service;
- Aircraft is not substituted for smaller aircraft;
- Adult either chooses seats for the entire reservation or skips seats for the entire reservation and does not make changes to seat assignments once assigned to them; and
- It is physically possible based on seat layout to seat the number of young children traveling next to the accompanying adult(s).
If these conditions are met, then the airline will assign adjacent seats to the adult and child no older than 13, no later than the day before the flight.
Basically, there’s no need for parents to fight other passengers over seats, not when there are fee-free airlines they can purchase seats from instead.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
