Sitting with kids on a flight is pretty much mandatory for most families.  While it’s certainly tempting for parents to try and get some peace and quiet (SEE: Dads in first, moms in coach), generally most parents need to sit with their kids on flights (especially younger kids).  We’ve seen Delta split up a man from his 7 year old daughter as one of a wide variety of stories that have been in the news over the past few months.
My experience getting airlines seats together as a family
With more and more airlines looking to get ancillary revenue any way possible, we’re seeing a lot more instances of premium and “premium” seats being held back out if inventory, with the airline hoping to be able to sell those later on to people wanting a better seat (or to be able to sit with their family and friends). Â This reduces the available seats and makes it harder for families looking to sit together for free.
(SEE ALSO: Why yes, I WOULD like to pay $15 for the seat right next to me)
Of course as a family of 8, this gets a little trickier for us!  Some airlines are better than others.  There are a few tricks to get to sit with your family on Southwest, which gets easier if you have children 4 years or under (as you get to board between the A and B groups.
We recently booked a flight on Delta and we were able to pick seats together with no problem
As you can see, with 2 adults and 6 kids, it’s a bit tricky to figure out the best arrangement (SEE: Well, how would YOU arrange 6 kids on a plane?). Â This worked fine except when Delta changed the airplane type for one of our flights, leading us to this jumbled mess
(SEE ALSO: Delta just SPLIT UP my family!)
We were able to get that resolved (at least partially), but had we waited to pick seats until closer to the flight we might have been more in trouble
Congress getting involved?
I feel like members of Congress like to get involved on the side of passengers against airlines because the airlines are a pretty easy whipping boy. Â In this case, Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO)Â recently added an amendment to the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill that would require airlines to allow parents to sit next to their kids for free. Â It also requires pregnant women to be allowed to preboard and parents to be able to accompany their children through all phases of security.
We’ll see if it makes it into the final bill. Â While I’m not sure this is the right way to handle this, it’s definitely true that the US airlines lag far behind European carriers.
For instance, for a canceled flight to Dublin on Aer Lingus I got a hotel room AND a check for $1306 (though I had to work for it). Â US carriers when flights are canceled or majorly delayed get bupkus (leading perhaps to this recent profane gate rant)
What do you think? Â Should airlines be required to let parents and kids sit together for free?
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
I really don’t like to see the government getting involved in such micro management, more regulation often begets more regulation, but, it would also seem that the airlines should be willing to seat families together as a matter of routine. I recently had a passenger on a flight virtually attack one of my children without any warning (my son was tying his shoe and his foot slipped off of his seat, impacting the passenger’s seat in front of him.) If he had been alone it might have been even more terrifying for him than is was. We encourage our children to be respectful of other people’s space and we need to be present to discipline our kids when they make a mistake such as this and protect them from others who have issues that they are not hesitant to take out on ones smaller than them. The airlines should seat families together without an act of congress. (Our kids are trained not to touch the seat in front of them and are quiet and respectful of others on a plane. I do understand and sometimes share the frustration travelers have with some kids, but ours behave better than many of the adults on most flights.)
Generally that’s my feeling too – as a general rule, I don’t like the government getting involved in things, but it certainly doesn’t seem like “the invisible hand” is moving any airlines towards seating families together…
The FACT is that airlines don’t care. They have the age of all passengers in their system, it should be a simple algorithm to ensure that if there is equipment change or something, that no MINOR is separate from their party. I have plenty of experience with this happening in fact.
We NEED regulation to this effect, so they will do the simple changes required. Just like we need to REQUIRE that airplanes report their position constantly so another MH370 doesn’t happen. Airlines will NEVER do this kind of thing just because it’s a good idea, we have proof of that.
I think it’s crazy that airlines don’t already do this. We usually fly on Southwest where it isn’t an issue for us to find seats together since we have young kids.
About a year ago we grabbed a super last minute flight on United to Orlando. By the time we booked our tickets, we were booking the last seats available on the plane so there wasn’t anything we could do to sit together. Since we do a lot of last minute travel, we had been in similar situations on other airlines and the gate agents had almost always been able to do something to help us get seats together. When I asked, the agent told me there wasn’t anything she could do and that I would just have to wait and see if anyone would be willing to switch seats on the flight (we had four tickets and I think we managed to get two together). Luckily people were willing to switch things up but it is a really terrible position to be put in where you have to beg someone to trade seats so you can sit next to your four year old instead of sitting ten rows away from them…
Yup – I’ve been there! On one of our first flights together as a family (Back before we knew how to travel hack), we were on Frontier and all split up. We ended up with 2 of our kids sitting next to this old lady who was SO sweet and grandmother-like. She even bought them some cookies!
I flew SW with my family this month and they allowed Family Boarding if you have a child 6 yrs old or younger.
Cool! I think children’s ages are a little sketchy – obviously there is no birth certificate required. Next time I fly Southwest I’ll check what they say
If found that the age where Southwest allows family boarding seems to vary at times depending on where we are departing from but the official policy according to their website is six years or younger.
I am SO for this. The fact that airlines have split children from parents is proof that the law is necessary!!! Just think of it all from the child’s perspective. That’s what really matters. The other adults will survive just fine in a different seat!