White House, DOT Look to Require Fee-Free Family Seating
Joe Cortez August 01, 2024
U.S. Department of Transportation Building
A new notice of proposed rulemaking backed by the Biden-Harris administration was announced on August 1, 2024, which would require air carriers to keep parents next to their young children on flights, which could save families $200 per more per round trip.
DOT Says Changing Rule Would Reduce Stress, Improve Experience for Everyone
Currently, the Transportation Department says airlines make family seating an option that comes with a seat selection fee. As a result, flyers are often required to negotiate with each other to keep young children with parents, resulting in other passengers losing out on their selected seats. If they can’t come to an agreement, a young child could end up sitting unattended next to a stranger.
“Many airlines still don’t guarantee family seating, which means parents wonder if they’ll have to pay extra just to be seated with their young child,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement. “The new rule we’re proposing today, which would ban airlines from charging parents a fee to sit with their children, is another example of the Biden-Harris Administration using all the tools at our disposal to lower costs for families and protect consumers from unfair practices.”
Under the proposed rule, airlines would be required to drop the seat assignment “junk fee” when placing a child under 13 next to their parent aboard a flight. Airlines would also be required to require adjacent family seating for free within 48 hours of boarding in every class of service. If seats are not available at boarding, families would be able to either get a full refund, get rebooked on the next available flight, or stay in the non-adjacent seats on the aircraft.
Airlines would also be required to inform airlines of their rights to free family seating, and what their options are when they aren’t available. If the airline forces a family to pay for adjacent seating, the carrier could face a fine.
The public and airlines will have an opportunity to provide comments before the proposed rule could be added to DOT requirements. The administration is also soliciting commentary on “what, if any, other services should also be considered basic and essential, and therefore included as part of the fare.”
Feature image courtesy: kmf164/flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0
This rule making is rather unrulely. The real issue is that no one wants to pay seat fees or people buy the cheapest seat which for some airlines are middle only seats or seat assignment at the time of boarding. Then people complain because they can not sit together. Or they buy tickets "late" when there are no options.As for waiting for "family" seating on the next flight. Given how full flight are these days that might be in three days.This rule making will change nothing substantially other than those parents who book early will pay a seat fee but jr and missy will not.Mean while the airline can do what they normanlly do. Leave the last two rows in the very back unassigned until boarding. Parents that do not plan can sit next to the lavs. Which I have done with my nieces because of last minute travel due to a family death.
Spot on!
I haven't been able to find the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in the Federal Register, only the link to the DOT announcement included in this article. The article also provides no information on how to submit comments. If anyone runs across this, please let us know here!
(In the meantime, I'll also try to figure out why my Federal Register subscription seems to have disappeared.)
I'm ok with this as long as the tickets are purchased at least a week before the flight. That way we don't see families asking other passengers to change their seats and get outraged when they are turned down.
BS! The legislation should be that they can't charge ANYONE to make their seat selection.
Just stop the whole money-making exercises of airlines by going back to how things used to be. A baggage allowance, no charge for seat selection and the price you see for the seat is the price you pay. I am sick and tired of companies that add extras such as non-negotiable admin fees (ticket agencies, Wowcher, etc) taxes and 'charges' and airlines where even going to the toilet might be an extra.
Er... Fly Southwest?