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The Biden administration is yet again trying to do a solid for consumers. From Ticketmaster to the travel industry, they’ve been trying to get big companies to eliminate junk fees and be transparent about hidden fees up front. Under Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the Department of Transportation has been coming hard for airlines and their greedy practices. They’ve fined them for keeping passengers on board too long during delays and held them accountable to give automatic refunds for long-delayed or canceled flights. Just last week, they announced that they’re investigating Delta as a result of how they handled the system outages that caused massive cancellations two weeks ago.
There are a lot of frustrating things about air travel in America, but one of the most infuriating practices is that you’re charged if you want to pick a seat. This is especially awful for families traveling together. If you’re a parent traveling with kids, you either have to bite the bullet and pay up front to ensure you sit together, or roll the dice and hope you and your kids are assigned seats together. Last year, Sec. Pete urged the bigwig airlines to abandon this cash grab and ban them from charging more for “family seating.” Some complied, while most didn’t. After nicely asking for everyone to do the right thing, Secretary Pete now means business. The DOT just proposed a rule banning airlines from charging parents fees to sit next to their children ages 13 and under.
Parents shouldn’t have to pay a fee to sit next to their children when flying, according to the White House, which is moving to ban airlines from charging families extra to be seated together. Under a rule proposed Thursday by the Department of Transportation, airlines would be required to seat parents and kids 13 and younger together free of charge when adjacent seating is available at booking.
The idea of seating adults with their younger children “is common sense and also seems like something that should be standard practice,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said at a news briefing on Wednesday. “As someone who has personally experienced flying with toddlers,” Buttigieg said he knew first-hand that families traveling with little ones do not need added difficulties.
The extra cost can be the difference in whether families can afford flights for vacations or to see friends and relatives, the administration argued, noting its proposal would save a family of four up to $200 roundtrip if seat fees are $25 each.
For children too young to fasten their own seatbelts or feed themselves, being seated next to a parent is crucial, yet those that don’t want to pay more often end up pleading with other passengers to switch seats. If passengers opt not to swap seats, they may end up next to an unsupervised child, stressing out the youngster, parent, flight attendants and travelers, DOT said.
President Biden called on Congress to ban family seating and other so-called “junk” fees early last year, with Buttigieg then urging the 10 largest airlines to voluntarily ban the fees. Four complied: Alaska, American, Frontier and JetBlue.
Congress gave the DOT explicit authority to propose its rule as part of the bipartisan FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024, the transportation secretary noted. “We are confident that we are well-founded in our authority, but it helps to get reassurances from Congress,” Buttigieg noted in answering a question about whether the proposal might be challenged in court.
In addition to banning airlines from charging fees to seat those 13 or under next to a parent or accompanying adult, the proposal would require that airlines seat parents next to their kids within 48 hours of booking when adjacent seats are available.
If adjacent seats are not available, carriers would be required to provide passengers with full refunds or the option of waiting to see if family seating frees up. If not, airlines would have to offer the option to rebook for free or stay on the flight in nonadjacent seats.
Speaking from personal experience, that extra cost *is* a lot. I generally don’t like flying on Southwest but at least they pretty much guarantee that you’ll end up sitting with your kids. (My issue with them is that they claim to be a budget airline when 95% of the time, they are much more expensive than other airlines.) This is another reason why everyone needs to get involved and vote Democrat in November! It’s so expensive to fly, and airlines want to unfairly charge you for having the audacity to travel as a family with children. Someone needs to get JD Vance involved, here. After all, that dude is all about giving preferential treatment to parents with children, no? I’ll say it louder for the CEOs in the back: Parents should not have to pay a fee to sit next to their children. Just because a company can charge someone extra for something doesn’t mean that they should.
Our new proposed rule would ban airlines from charging parents a fee just to sit next to their children. pic.twitter.com/r4qpNusrmp
— Secretary Pete Buttigieg (@SecretaryPete) August 1, 2024
Families should be able to sit together on a flight without paying more.
Today, the Biden-Harris Administration continues our work to lower costs and fight price gouging by proposing a ban on airlines charging those fees — saving families as much as $200 for roundtrip flights.
— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) August 1, 2024
The law is clear: if your flight gets cancelled or significantly delayed, you get a refund.
We’re reminding U.S. airlines of their responsibilities, and the rules that we enforce. pic.twitter.com/uTl8ZwaQPp
— Secretary Pete Buttigieg (@SecretaryPete) August 2, 2024
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