She had a seat in the same row as her son’s middle seat, but on the other side of the aisle. Gate agents and flight attendants said they couldn’t help. She asked passengers on either side of the 5-year-old to switch and no one would move.

“He did fine,” Ms. Piper says. “Part of me kind of wanted him to spill his Sprite on them, but he didn’t.”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4144952&forum_id=2#37318955)

If someone wants me to move from a window seat that I have chosen to an aisle or a middle seat, I'm not inclined to do that for nothing. Especially if I paid for the seat and the person asking me to move saved money by not paying for a seat and now wants to get the benefit of having paid for free by asking me to move.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4144952&forum_id=2#37319275)

When this happens, the airline should have some algorithm for the rebooking that doesn't leave little kids alone in a seat, and changes other people's seats first, refunding them the difference if necessary.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4144952&forum_id=2#37319285)

I'd move for a reasonable fee depending on flight length and comparativr seat quality

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4144952&forum_id=2#37319311)

edit: yea, she obv had booked both middle seats and was hoping to get someone to move. fuck that.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4144952&forum_id=2#37319508)

A real man would have traded seats with a woman who intended to care for her child in public.

Buried lede, of course, is that she was not traveling with the father / protector.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4144952&forum_id=2#37319300)

http://facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/flying-together-with-your-children-keeps-getting-tougher-1536764795

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4144952&forum_id=2#37319327)

Flying Together With Your Children Keeps Getting Tougher

As Delta, American and United hold back more seats for corporate customers and elite frequent fliers, parents must pay to sit even with toddlers

JOSE LUIS MERINO

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441 COMMENTS

By Scott McCartney

Sept. 12, 2018 11:06 a.m. ET

Parents have always stressed about flying with small children. Airlines are ratcheting up that stress now by making it harder for parents to sit with them.

This fall, United Airlines will make it a bit tougher, or at least more expensive, to get seats together by joining Delta and American in reserving more seats for corporate customers and requiring fees for many regular-legroom seats.

On airplanes, everything has a consequence. Reserving more seats for some means fewer seats for others. On some flights with heavy numbers of seats reserved, the only seats open to being reserved for free may be middle seats, limiting options for families except to pay extra fees for seats together.

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Parents won’t be getting help from the feds, either. Under orders from Congress, the Transportation Department reviewed the family seating issue and determined, based on a low number of complaints, that new rules aren’t necessary, an official says. Congress had ordered a review in 2016 and directed DOT to come up with regulations forcing airlines to provide children with seats next to parents “if appropriate.”

The agency recently determined “issuing a policy was not appropriate at this time,” a DOT official says. To be sure, parental complaints about airline seating issues are widespread, even if not many have filed official complaints with DOT. But the Trump administration has moved to reduce regulation and new regulations on airlines face a high hurdle.

Some parents report unusual seat switches by gate agents this summer that created problems even when they had reserved seats together in advance and in many cases paid the seat fees to be together.

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THE MIDDLE SEAT

Ashley Piper of Memphis, Tenn., travels frequently with her two children, and always has seats reserved together, including on a vacation to Vancouver, British Columbia. When the family reached Minneapolis for their connecting flight, she checked seat assignments on the Delta app and discovered she and her 5-year-old son had both been separated from her husband and 7-year-old daughter. (Their seats were unchanged.)

She had a seat in the same row as her son’s middle seat, but on the other side of the aisle. Gate agents and flight attendants said they couldn’t help. She asked passengers on either side of the 5-year-old to switch and no one would move.

“He did fine,” Ms. Piper says. “Part of me kind of wanted him to spill his Sprite on them, but he didn’t.”

Becca and Mike Brownstein took their children to Busch Gardens in Tampa, Fla., this summer. Both on the way there and returning home, Delta Air Lines reassigned seats for children as they boarded, separating the family. Several families had similar experiences on several airlines, highlighting the difficulties families have traveling together even when they pay to reserve seats.

Becca and Mike Brownstein took their children to Busch Gardens in Tampa, Fla., this summer. Both on the way there and returning home, Delta Air Lines reassigned seats for children as they boarded, separating the family. Several families had similar experiences on several airlines, highlighting the difficulties families have traveling together even when they pay to reserve seats. PHOTO: BUSCH GARDENS

Becca Brownstein and her husband were taking their three children to Tampa, Fla., in July and had paid fees to get five seats across one row on Delta. When they checked in for their flight from Las Vegas, the seat assignments were the same. But in Salt Lake City, when they went to board a connecting flight to Tampa, Ms. Brownstein’s 5-year-old daughter’s seat was moved several rows away. So was her 8-year-old son’s.

She looked incredulously at the gate agent and said: “She’s 5! How did you move her somewhere else?’’

Flight attendants brokered a swap so her daughter could sit with her. But her son sat seven rows in front of them for the four-hour flight. Similar problems arose on their connective flight home.

“Why is it OK to separate them at any point in the travel experience?” Ms. Brownstein says. She also wonders why gate agents couldn’t ask for volunteers to be reseated so families aren’t broken up—or at least inform parents earlier of the switch and ask if it’s OK.

Delta says it doesn’t know why the family got separated. “Delta’s intent is to ensure that all ticketed passengers on the same record are seated together, especially families,” a spokesman said in a written statement. “When that doesn’t happen prior to boarding, flight attendants, as they are able, will work to resolve the situation.”

Other families say sitting together got tougher this summer after their seats on Delta, United and American flights were shuffled. In some cases they were told they had new seat assignments because the aircraft for the flight had changed. Others received no explanation, just new boarding passes—and a suggestion to try to persuade other passengers to swap.

The root of the problem is how few free seats airlines make available anymore.

American’s Flight 349 from New York LaGuardia to Chicago O’Hare the day before Thanksgiving is an extreme example given the high demand, but shows how airlines work. On a Sept. 10 search, there were plenty of tickets available starting at $211 one-way and only 29 of 144 seats in coach were reserved. Without elite status, the only seats available to reserve in coach at no cost were middle seats. Everything else was reserved for travelers with elite status, extra-legroom rows or regular rows designated as preferred.

“If you’re traveling with a 4-year-old, it’s not a convenience [to have seats together]. It’s a necessity,” says Rainer Jenss, president of the Family Travel Association, an industry group that works with cruise lines, hotels, airlines, travel agents and others to promote family-friendly accommodations. “If you’re forced to pay a premium because you’re traveling with a child, it’s discrimination.”

American says its automatic booking system tries to seat families together before boarding. Each flight has roughly 12 seats that gate agents control and can use to put families together.

Family travel advocates say some airlines handle the issue effectively. Southwest, for example, lets families with small children board after the first 60 passengers. Southwest has open seating, so families can always find seats together.

Ironically, ultradiscount airlines that started the pay-for-seat-assignments trend can often put families together more easily because they don’t have legions of elite-level frequent fliers and corporate customers with priority for aisle and window seats.

Overall, the problem is getting worse and more complicated, especially with United’s pending move this fall to restrict free seats, says Summer Hull, founder of the travel blog Mommy Points. When Delta, American and now United put the low-cost model on top of their preferential system, families are left out.

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She thinks more families are resigned to paying extra fees to sit together, and for those that don’t or get switched, that sometimes means begging on board.

“Most of the time it will work out, at least to get some parent next to some younger child. But it’s going to require drama. It’s going to require effort on the part of other passengers willing to trade sometimes,” she says. “It’s not a great solution that they have right now.”

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(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4144952&forum_id=2#37319332)

Other families say sitting together got tougher this summer after their seats on Delta, United and American flights were shuffled. In some cases they were told they had new seat assignments because the aircraft for the flight had changed. Others received no explanation, just new boarding passes—and a suggestion to try to persuade other passengers to swap.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4144952&forum_id=2#37320841)

She looked incredulously at the gate agent and said: “She’s 5! How did you move her somewhere else?’’

Flight attendants brokered a swap so her daughter could sit with her. But her son sat seven rows in front of them for the four-hour flight. Similar problems arose on their connective flight home."

I would lose my shit until they moved him with me. Not letting my kid sit next to some pedo doing God knows what during the flight.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4144952&forum_id=2#37319345)

old daughter, Danielle, to visit her aunt and uncle in St. Louis on a Southwest Airlines flight. Danielle travelled as an unaccompanied minor. On the return flight, Danielle was not seated in the two front rows of the plane, as compelled by Southwest's policy on unaccompanied minors. Rather, she was seated in the sixth row next to a male passenger who, over the course of the flight, showed Danielle pornographic material, spoke in a lewd fashion, and exposed his genitals.

In August of 1994, Danielle's mother, the appellant, filed this suit against Southwest Airlines, the defendant/appellee, in Texas state court alleging state tort law causes of action. The defendant removed the case to federal court. In September of 1994, the defendant filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). The defendant argued that the plaintiff's causes of action were preempted by the Airline Deregulation Act.1

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4144952&forum_id=2#37319364)

Edit: Oh, she was trying to trade middle for aisle or window? Fuck that. And now I don't believe her story at all.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4144952&forum_id=2#37319335)

and no, dragging a crazed chink off a plane for misbehaving was not the wrong thing to do

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4144952&forum_id=2#37319608)

This is a story on budget airlines (((shrewdly))) splitting up budget passengers in order to entice them to (((pay))) for assigned seating

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4144952&forum_id=2#37319668)

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/1900563002

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/american-airlines-witness-describes-incident-involving-flight-attendant-and-woman-with-stroller/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/southwest-apologizes-for-asking-mom-to-prove-mixed-race-son-is-hers-2018-5

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/03/13/united-apologizes-for-dog-that-died-after-being-put-in-overhead-bin.html

https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2018/06/05/american-airlines-apologizes-to-passenger-for-shredded-suitcase/amp/

These aren’t rare. Airlines are run and managed by people, and people can be idiots and assholes.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4144952&forum_id=2#37319772)

Now you want me to come up with proof of this EXACT scenario? lol hey, where'd those goalposts go?!

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4144952&forum_id=2#37320218)

or to ask for proof that a kid really belonged to the mom? what if they were being trafficked?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4144952&forum_id=2#37320471)

Also, the woman probably just failed to select seats on the connecting flights thinking the airline would just automatically put them together.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4144952&forum_id=2#37319492)

Their booking systems should incorporate constraints that make it *impossible* to book a seat for a kid under, say, 8, to be nonadjacent to the rest of the group (in fact, even if the parent wants to do so, it should block such a booking). Any reallocation of seats due to flight changes should also incorporate this constraint (moving/refunding other passengers as necessary).

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4144952&forum_id=2#37320889)

Also, unclear why so many people are so Convinced the woman is a liar.

Also, surprised that the people on a flight from Minnesota to Canada were such assholes that they couldn’t find anyone to move.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4144952&forum_id=2#37320983)