After years of urging from consumer groups and authorization from Congress, the Department of Transportation finally issued a legislative proposal requiring airlines to seat children ages 13 or younger adjacent to a family member or accompanying adult without paying a seat-selection fee. I can’t believe how long it has taken DOT to reach this point, but here we are. You can expect final action soon.
You can also expect some airlines to contest a new rule. They will follow their long-standing pattern of response to consumer complaints. Normally, they ignore obvious consumer pain points indefinitely, even if they could easily fix the problem on their own. Then, when the mass of complaints becomes overwhelming and the DOT issues a rule, they whine about “excessive regulation.”
- Parents or supervising adults will be able to keep monitoring the needs and behaviors of children and attend to their safety more easily than if the children are seated separately.
- Minor children will have added security and protection from unwanted advances by strangers and will have improved access to adult assistance.
- Travelers without accompanying children of their own will not have to cope with the needs, demands, and actions of somebody else’s isolated children.
The proposed rule applies to “an air carrier or foreign air carrier,” without any additional detail. So far, four of the 10 airlines that DOT considers as “large” have voluntarily made a commitment to fee-free family seating: Alaska, American, Frontier, and JetBlue. Presumably, it will apply to the other six large domestic lines and foreign carrier flights originating in the United States but not to foreign carrier flights into the United States.
Leading consumer advocates are hailing the DOT announcement, as they should, given their long pursuit of such an action. But there are lots of consumer issues still on the table for DOT to consider, including requiring longer validity periods for airline credit vouchers issued in lieu of cash refunds, setting minimum seat sizes for commercial airlines, and addressing a long list of “junk fees” that have arisen. Many of these issues are complicated and do not have the easy answer that family seating does. Deciding which junk fees are really junk and which are legitimate breakouts of optional services is an ongoing question that everyone involved is trying to sort. And making a meaningful increase to the minimum seat size to a level of reasonable comfort would entail an unacceptable economic penalty: There is no way that airlines could provide adequately wide seats with the standard six-across seating on the ubiquitous 737 and A320 families of jets.
It’s not at all clear if we can expect any additional rule proposals during the few months remaining in the current administration. Most of the ongoing issues will likely carry over into the next administration, and we have no idea how receptive the next one will be to consumer issues. If the new DOT doesn’t act aggressively, it will be for lack of interest, not lack of important issues. At this point, we can only hope for the best.
