Originally Posted by
crabbing
more precisely, the system should recognize when a reservation includes an underage child, and require a seat selection adjacent to an adult on the same PNR. any attempt to seat a child, by either the passenger or the airline, separately should be prohibited. in the event of IROPS, equipment change, or something else that shuffles seats, the system should put the child+adult into either gate-reserved seats (e.g., bulkhead or last row), or move them up to economy plus or whatever.
i am not aware of any reason why the airlines can't do this. they just don't want to.
Emirates does this - to some extent - for pax traveling with infants.
Bassinet seats are blocked off on seat maps and can only be selected by pax with an infant on the PNR.
Seats next to bassinet seats are available for selection, but the airline reserves the right to reassign you if a family with an infant needs it (and I've seen it done). [Note: and do you really want to pick a Y seat next a bassinet on an EK long haul???]
Phone CSRs will generally let you reserve a bassinet seat in J (mainly because there are less infants traveling), but will explicitly warn you that you will get the boot if an infant bassinet seat is required.