United Airlines Makes First Move On Family Seating, Ahead Of Regulation

No one argues that a child under a certain age, say 12 or 13, should sit alone on an aircraft next to someone they don’t know. And yet this simple idea has been hard for the largest U.S. airlines to execute, largely because they favor business travelers over families. This issue has reached attention at the highest levels of government, as President Biden referred to this as a “junk fee” problem. There is bipartisan support to help ensure that families can sit together. United has addressed this issue with a new policy to help guarantee that young children can sit next to a known adult.

The low-cost airlines in the U.S. have had few problems with this, mostly because they carry a lot of families. The largest U.S. airlines carry most of the business travel, and airlines often save seats for these travelers in ways that make it hard to get seats together for families. Add to this some economic reality of who pays for a seat and who should sit for free, and you have a mix that could affect future aviation policy and change the role of business versus families onboard.

The Problem For Big U.S. Airlines

Business customers versus families. The major reason family seating has been a problem for the large U.S. airlines is that they reserve most of their window and aisle seats for “premium customers.” These could open for those who buy certain fare types, are logged in as part of a corporate deal, or may be a certain level within the loyalty program. But for any one buying on discretion, like many families planning a vacation, they see a seat map without even two seats together sometimes. I’ve heard executives from American, United, and Delta all say that it’s easy for families to sit together if they just buy the seats assignments together. Not only does this raise the cost of trip beyond what made some choose them initially, at times this isn’t even possible because of blocking for higher-paying customers.

Lower-cost airlines rarely have this problem, because they don’t block many, if any, seats in advance. Now it’s true that on most they may have to pay a fee to choose seats together, even this isn’t always required as the low-fare airlines that charge advanced seat fees will still assign seats together at the airport if they bare available. They almost always are. Southwest Airlines does not offer seat assignments and they board families fairly early in their process. This means that, most of time, families can find seats together when they board. But once in a while, the plane is half-filled before being boarded because of passengers boarded at the previous stop.

United’s Move

United Airlines jumped ahead with a solution to this problem when they sensed there was government interest in solving it. Attempting to forestall regulation in the area, they introduced a second booking path for families with children between two and 12 years old. This path releases seats that would still show as blocked on the other, original booking path. That means that itineraries that do not include an age-appropriate child will still see the blocked seats. In case adjacent seats cannot be located, United says they will offer a new flight with no extra fees charged. As of this writing, neither American Airlines or Delta Airlines has matched this policy.

The policy itself is somewhat uncertain, however. The language in United’s release says that they will “sit children under 12-years old next to an adult in their party for free – regardless of the type of ticket purchased.” I asked a non-random set of people who sits for free, and half said just the child and half said the child and the adult. So I called United reservations and asked, and twice was told only the child’s seat is free and twice was told both the child and adult seats are free. If you strip the statement down, it says only “sit children for free.” One might think that if the adult sat free too, United would have celebrated this specifically in their release.

Who Ends Up Paying?

Under either interpretation of their ruling, United is choosing to forego some ancillary revenue in favor of not having a new regulations forced on them. They may be thinking that this costs them less than it may cost other airlines who carry more families, so they win that way too. CEO Scott Kirby has stated often that low-cost airlines have lost their advantages, and he may see this as yet another way to ensure his statement comes true.

But economics can’t be ignored, and if airlines make less money from seat fees then they will have to make more money somewhere else to make this up. So what prices will rise as a result of this change — the price of tickets or maybe the price of baggage since families tend to check bags too?

Politics At United

Since former President Obama appointee Josh Earnest joined United Airlines, they have become more politically tuned and their narratives have closely followed the current administrations leanings. They were the first airline to require all of their employees be vaccinated at a time when the administration was on a heavy “get everyone vaccinated” campaign. They ordered electric airplanes, whose economics are far from certain at this point, and pushed other green initiatives, again in line with the Biden administration. And now they are reading the tea leaves about the concerns of families sitting together on planes and being the white knight to save the industry. But in reality they are saving themselves, since it is really only the big airlines that have a problem seating families together.

Why No New Regulation Is Needed

Family seating is an issue for airlines, but it is not the same at every airline and each airline takes steps to minimize the issue. Any regulation in this area is likely to be “high cost and low impact”, instead of a desired “low cost and high impact” approach. Ultra-low cost carrier Frontier has announced they will be more accommodating to families. Whether it is not blocking seats for passengers who might pay more, or proactively finding flights with children and seating them with an adult in their party, or any other low-cost approach, the airlines don’t want to be seen as being family unfriendly and they will fix this in creative, if not all the same, ways.