I've posted it before and I'll repeat it. And perhaps our legislators need to get out of their offices and see what it's like in the real world of airline travel.
Onboard a flight to LAX, a mom dad and 2 kids were separated. How they did not know this before they boarded is still a mystery to me (do some people really not look at their seat assignments on their boarding passes?)
Dad and 1 child are seated in Preferred. Mom and other child are in the back of the bus somewhere. She throws a fit. She say she doesn't understand why they are not seated together.
After some back and forth, we, the audience, come to understand this family bought Tango tickets and did not want to pay extra for their assigned seats and thus got them at the gate, so family separated.
Mom does not care, won't sit down and is getting agitated. She wants to sit up front with her husband and other child. FA says that the upfront rows are Preferred and pax paid extra for those. The mom can't understand how that applies to her.
Pilot finally makes an announcement for everyone to take their seats so we can get going. Mom is adamant. FA says they will try and deal with this after takeoff.
IIRC, someone in a row ahead of me gave up their seats and swapped.
Moral of the story:
Airlines tell people they can choose to pay only for what they want - the flight, a seat, their checked bag, a meal. But many once-a-year fliers don know, don't read or don't care. Then they show up to fly and they are annoyed.
I'm really sorry that I am not more sympathetic, but I see this nonsense all the time.
It seems that there are still many people who either won't or don't know how to avail themselves of the info available regarding their flights and then get annoyed at the airline.
BTW, there were plenty of people on Preferred who paid extra for their seats and get rather annoyed at all the gate assigned people who get to sit up there for free.