Sorry if this has been asked/discussed before, but I rarely fly AA (usually UA or DL) and I couldn't find this particular topic.

Anyway, I recently booked a basic economy flight for myself and my two kids (aged 3 and 5). I'm aware of the restrictions of basic economy but for this flight it would work, particularly since American promises families with small children will be seated together.

After booking though, although we we're seated "together", we were given a middle seat and two aisle seats (i.e., putting someone by themselves on the other side of the aisle. This is despite there being plenty of space (and plenty of rows with three seats together).




I called American to see if this could be fixed and it took an hour on the phone before they were able to put us in 3 seats together without splitting us by an aisle and without paying a seat selection fee.

This seems like American's "family seating" algorithm is trying to find the most inconvenient seating possible while still meeting the "seated adjacently" requirement to push people into paying for seat assignments. Buying basic economy on DL or UA with kids I've never had this issue.