Originally Posted by
mtkeller
I'd have no sympathy for people who purposefully book middle seats between preferred seats to try to get someone to switch. However, I have friends with kids (one still going as infant in arms for a couple more months and the other just turned three) that have had big problems with DL schedule changes messing up their seating. For their most recent trip, a schedule change resulted in the three of them being scattered across the aircraft, and it was close enough to departure that there were not three non-preferred seats anywhere near each other. I don't think preferred seats need to be reduced, but I do think that DL needs to do something to take care of families through schedule/equipment changes. It seems there should be some way to note that a record contains children under 10 (or whatever age) so that the booking gets manually reviewed after a schedule change. DL could easily shuffle around some other non-elites (there was just a schedule change, so people were moved around anyway) to get the families together. For those who don't fly with their kids that often, the whole process is stressful enough without having to go beg a frazzled GA to find a way to seat their family together. The idea that's repeatedly been suggested of blocking more of the seats in the rear of the aircraft for gate assignment would also be a good path.
Don't you have to plug in a DOB for each pax at time of booking now? Seems like that info is already in there and just needs to be made available to the right people (GAs).
Still like this idea of blocking the rear rows to allow GAs flexibility in accommodating families and the like, both for standard ops and IRROPs. I understand that a parent would want to sit next to their young child. I don't have kids, but if I were travelling with my niece or nephew would certainly not want them to be separated from me, mainly because I want to be available to keep them in check if they start acting up. But, also agree that other pax who have correctly obtained their seat through status, purchase, or better advance planning shouldn't be the ones inconvenienced by the very foreseeable needs of others. Other than IRROPS, I don't often find myself getting to the gate and suddenly realizing that I have a kid in tow, and am then flustered by the fact that we don't have seats together. And when that does happen in IRROPS, I'll take two seats in the lav if it means they're together - I know I'm asking for a favor, so I expect to have whoever I'm moving to get the pair of seats to also end up with something that benefits them, too, be it a non-middle, something closer to the front, etc. The seats together are far more important than where they are in the plane.
If sitting by your kids is that important, you ought to be willing to give up that row near the front of the plane. If sitting near the front is more important, you ought to be willing to give up the ability to sit next to your kid, or whatever fee it takes to buy the preferred seat. Prioritizing your wants and needs is as much a part of flying as it is any other part of your life.
As one more data point, there was one instance where I was traveling with my wife on short notice and we couldn't find two seats together. While we were prepared to sit separately, I put her in a middle near the back and bought a preferred window in the second row of Y. Got to the gate early and asked GA if she would ask the person in the window next to my wife if they'd like my window, further up, all the while making it clear that we'd keep our assigned seats if it didn't work out. GA called up the other pax, we made the switch. They got a better seat by a combination of luck and being accomodating, and I felt like I still got a "preferred" seat that I paid for by being able to sit next to the wife. I feel certain that this approach would work if you replace "wife" with "child" - it's all about being a decent human being and recognizing that if you're asking for the favor, you should be prepared to offer something else in return.