KoKoBuddy

I sympathize with the OP's sister. It reminds me when I went to a Chevy dealership, paid $20K for a Cruze and then the stupid salesman gave me a $20K Chevy Cruze instead of the $70K Corvette I really wanted. My brother tried explaining to the "rude" salesman that even though I only paid $20K, he was sure there is a law somewhere than if I reaaaaaly want a Corvette, but only paid for a Cruze, Chevrolet still has to give me the more expensive car. I mean come on, I'm a really busy guy with kids, how the heck am I supposed to keep track of prices for different types of cars?

John Aldeborgh

I'm just wondering whats left when personal responsibility goes away? What else is there? The rules are well documented and everyone is expected to play by them, no exceptions. It's common decency to respect the rules we must all live by, it's more or less the basis of all civilization. A key part of raising children is teaching them about personal responsibility, following the rules and common decency. People without personal responsibility shouldn't fly. People trying to game the system are not welcome by those of us who suffer their static and indignation. I've raised 3 wonderful daughters, I have paid my dues in full.

StuckinITH

Obviously, this is not the same story. Your girlfriend got a good deal out of it. If the OP would have given his First Class seat to the gentleman who had to give up his aisle seat for a middle seat, everybody here would have congratulated the OP for being so nice to his sister in law and the kids.

dilanesp

They already do.

Early boarding is sold as an add on. Yet parents of small children can get it free.

This is not really any different. It isn't gaming the system because you can't fake having a child.

greg99

KoKoBuddy

The issue I have with the OP's presentation of the story isn't so much kids being split from their parents, it's the entitlement angle. She's such a BUSY MOM, how dare you impugn her righteousness??!??!?! It's an intellectually lazy argument which by default makes anyone who challenges the argument a kid hater or anti-family or what have you.

I have kids, I've gone through this before, kids in Row 23 me and my wife in Row 12. It sucks, but it's life, you just deal with it when boarding and 99.9% of the time, you get it worked out with other passengers. Most adults don't want to sit next to someone else's kids and they're more than happy to switch. But, I've never once demanded that a GA move people around on my behalf. I wouldn't even think of doing such a thing.

And yeah I'm busy as hell as is my wife. Everyone's busy. But nobody is busy enough to not have 10 seconds to read fare rules when booking online. This is all part of the victim society we've created, where nothing is ever anyone's fault anymore. And it's going to get a lot worse before it gets any better.

The_Bouncer

👏👏👏👏👏

You are absolutely right. Read the rules and if the product doesn't suit you, don't buy it.

Just one thing though - in the situation you described above, why not one adult and one child in row 12 and one adult and one child in row 23, rather than "working it out with other passengers"?

MarkOK

I suppose we have a disagreement. I am not suggesting that a parent with a child gets to 'choose' seats for free, only that United assigns them some seats together. I don't think that being seated with your child is a 'perk' nor is it an amenity nor does it create a moral hazard. More so, I see it as a liability for the airline should something happen to that child in flight, I see it as an inconsideration of other passengers (who now have to essentially babysit), and furthermore I see it as totally avoidable. What is so hard about United just assigning seats at ticketing for a parent and minor children in the back of the plane? Who does that inconvenience? United can and should still charge them if they want to change seats. If two parents with two minor children buys BE fares, I am saying that United can simply ensure that each child is seated with at least 1 parent at ticketing (whether that is finding 2 sets of 2 seats together, a set of 3 seats and a single seat elsewhere, or 4 adjacent seats, its whatever United wants to do). That is still in every practical way a situation in which a BE ticket is still a BE ticket! (can't choose seats, can't bring on baggage without paying fees, can't accumulate miles etc etc). Blocking parents with children from buying a BE fare is taking a sledge hammer to crack a nut.

American Airlines for whatever reason figured this out with their BE and whenever a minor child is ticketed in BE they simply assign low-value back of the cabin seats at ticketing to ensure that any minors are seated with a parent. If anything, this can actually create a lower value than travelling alone with a BE ticket (where if you wait to check in until the last minute, there is a decent chance they will put you in main economy extra because those are where the only unassigned seats are!). United (and all us) have an example where this problem is solved, which is why I am somewhat amazed at how this thread is so long and heated. I don't think anyone paying regular discounted economy fares in AA suffers one iota from their system, nor do I think this give any incentive to parents with children to buy BE fares over the rest of the travelling public.


Reading the fare rules, it isn't explicit about minor children. They state that 'families' won't necessarily be able to sit together, which makes sense for any group of grown adults (couples, grandparents, sisters, etc). Sure, one could take this interpretation to the fullest extent, but this is an interpretation that in my opinion defies common sense, an interpretation that is factually at odds with how other airlines treat minor children, and an interpretation that goes against a law that Congress passed (which sure wasn't developed into actual hard rules, but the language was still passed with bipartisan sponsors). So, what we have here is a case of imperfect information.

https://www.united.com/web/en-US/con...onomy-faq.aspx
https://www.united.com/web/en-US/con...c-economy.aspx

The busy mom angle to me is simply the recognition that this is a person who lacked perfect knowledge. In many parts of society, there are situations in which there is a large disparity in outcomes between people who have disparities in knowledge. Oddly enough, the finer details of air travel is one of those areas (in no small part due to a lot of fine print and complicated rules that airlines purposefully develop to squeeze extra profit margins levied on those with imperfect knowledge through fees). I do extensive work in the university setting to correct knowledge-disparities that have produced large disparities in who continues to graduate education (in STEM, where is matters), and frankly, I get sick and tired of people with more perfect knowledge blaming others with imperfect knowledge for their outcomes. It isn't helpful and smacks of privilege. FT should work more at correcting knowledge, not blaming people for a lack of knowlege. And what is that knowledge? That knowledge is that United indeed has this terrible policy on minor children that is in violation of the spirit of a 2016 law passed by Congress but not made into rules. A policy that is less customer friendly than their competitors.

greg99

I suppose we do.
It's not about "choice." The rules of the BE fares say "NO PRERESERVED SEATS" - you're asking for seats to be prereserved for families. It's fair that we have the discussion about whether BE fares are a good thing or a bad thing (personally I think they suck, and Kirby's leading a race to the bottom), but they're a thing, and this is how UA is choosing to implement the concept. People are asking for an exception to the explicitly stated (and even vividly colored) rules based solely on the fact that they're traveling with a child.
It is and does when the rules of the fare say that you're not entitled to prereserved seats and the only way to do that under the fare rules is with an exception for which other travelers are not eligible.
The potential liability and inconvenience are caused not by UA, but by the passengers' unwillingness to pay a higher fare pursuant to which they could reserve seats together.
It's not hard at all - it's easily done by the passenger paying the fare that includes the ability to do so.
Everyone. It inconveniences passengers traveling on higher priced fares who should have been able to choose the seats that the family is preassigned to. It unfairly penalizes BE passengers traveling in a group without children who wouldn't be eligible to do book a couple of seats together.
See above about what the fare rules actually say. They say that BE passengers can't "prereserve" seats, not just that they can't "choose" their seat. As my kindergarten teacher used to tell me (I still remember, cough, 40+ years ago...): "You get what you get."

Maybe - like I said, I don't know how big a problem this is. It depends upon how many parents are choosing to make a fuss over not getting to prereserve seats when the booking engine basically screams "YOU CAN'T PRERESERVE SEATS!!!" If it's a small number of parents ignoring the fare rules when they book and hoping for the best, then maybe UA doesn't need to make a systematic change.

It's not actually "solved," it's just that AA has chosen to ignore the issues. That may be the most commercially viable choice, UA is choosing differently at least for now. The fact that this thread *is* so long and heated, and the circumstances causing OP to start the thread in the first place, is evidence that there is an incentive to choose the BE fares.

You'll note that the mom in OP's post wasn't complaining that she couldn't "buy-up" her fare to one where she could have seats together, she was complaining that she didn't get seats together for free...

MrTemporal

After much thought, I have to say, that while I don't like the way the airlines are running their business today, the ultimately responsibility for this mess is with the parent. As a parent, we always made sure that we could fly together when the kids were very small. If a flight was so full we could not get seats together, we booked another flight. Yes, at times that was inconvenient and somewhat more expensive. When the children were big enough to sit alone, we still made certain they were near enough to us that we could monitor their well-being and behavior on the aircraft. It's what parents do.

eng3

UA is very clear on the product they sell. Parents are well aware that they have the option of getting a seating assignment together, but because they want to save money (and/or a a sense of entitlement), they figure that they can get it both ways, pay a lower price and have a high likelihood of still getting the seats they want. If they ask, a GA will likely try to seat them together anyways (giving GA's more work during boarding). If that fails, ask people to switch seats on the plane (slowing down boarding). Probably, 90% of the time, they get what they want. The other 10% of the time, they can write in and complain and will probably still get a voucher or some miles.
IMHO, its the same as parents who do not buy a seat for their infant and let them sit on their lap. By letting an infant since on the parent’s lap, the parent basically forfeit the child’s life and put the lives of the people around them in danger if there is a serious accident. But they know there is a high likelihood that there will be no incident and they will get to their destination safely. Thus they opt for the cheaper option.

kapooncha

Parents can raise their children anyway they see fit. However, don't involve me and don't ask me for help in doing it. I'm not interested.

kale73

I suspect that anyone who ends up seated next to Ebenezer Dorset's 10-year-old son on a TCON might have a different take on the efficacy of the airline seating children with parents.

Often1

The entire premise of this endless thread is evident in the title, e.g., that UA split up a family.

UA did no such thing. The parent split up her family.

MrTemporal

Bingo!