Flying with kids isn’t easy and it can also be costly, even if you’re using miles.
Various fees can make a bargain ticket go up in price. (Think checked luggage fees and paying to pre-select seats etc…)
When you’re flying with kids, the last thing you want to worry about is sitting next to your kid and now a proposed new bill might change this for the better.
Kim sent me an article from Babble about the Senate adding “an amendment to the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill“.
If passed the bill would require airlines to let parents do something which should just be common sense- Sit Next To Their Kids. The key point of this bill is that airlines would be required to do this at no additional cost or fees.
There haven’t been many instances during Lucas’s travels (120 flight segments to date) where we haven’t been ticketed to sit together during a flight. When one of our flights was cancelled in late 2015, the airline gave us seats all over the plane. Rather than have to ask when we got on board, the gate agent was able to sit Kim and Lucas together with me sitting a few rows ahead. Now imagine, during boarding having to ask other passengers to switch or have a flight attendant get involved!
Babble mentions that this proposed bill would also help families with a few other things at the airport.
The bill would, “ensure that kids wouldn’t be separated from their parents while going through security checkpoints, and even grant pregnant woman one (major) added bonus: the ability to pre-board“. Sounds like some pretty fair rules.
Hopefully this bill will pass, making things a bit easier (and less pricey) for traveling families.
Find out more from Babble here.
Disgusted- I’m not really getting why those who have kids are self-absorbed? I have to say that I am really glad that you chose to be a “non-breeder”. (I’d definitely feel sorry for those kids.)
Charles- Thanks for the comment! 🙂
WR- I could see you (and others) not fully agreeing with this. Thanks for giving a good reason why.
Rich- I don’t really see traveling families as a “privileged class”. Would you not consider it common sense that a kid should sit with a parent? As for putting up with screaming and seat kicking kids, how do we put up with screaming, drunk, seat-kicking adults?
WR: +1. Last minute booking families will be demanding their entitled seats. This ever increasingly “traveling privileged class” will care less if other passengers are inconvenienced. Bad enough with screaming, seat kicking kids to put up with, but now couples traveling without kids will be relegated to middle seats to accommodate this privileged class. If this truly becomes the case, families should be charged extra for this entitlement and placed only in the last rows of the aircraft. This would only be fair to the other passengers , including families, that plan ahead!
Not really 100% with this, depending on the age of the child (some drafts have 12-13 yr olds under this), and cases like this:
I buy a economy+ ticket w/surcharge, and parent ends up with ticket next to me. I shouldn’t have to move, especially if I researched/paid extra/etc to specifically choose that seat. (think aisle seat). Under this, I may be “removed”, even if I purchased a seat earlier than the parent, etc. Also, I may be out my surcharge.
Do not move the surcharge/fees to other people, who may be w/o children, etc.
The devil’s in the details here, and given past considerations, I wouldn’t consider the airlines or the government to be very good at them.
WR
What a load of malarkey. Bad enough “families” get to preboard, but pregnant women too? As a proud non-breeder, I resent paying extra taxes/fees just so more self-absorbed people can breed in an already overcrowded planet.
As far as I’m concerned, if you breed, you should be taxed more for your vastly increased carbon footprint.
I wish your parents had said the same thing. Natural selection is a beautiful thing, but not as beautiful as the experience of having a family. Take your hate elsewhere, obviously you haven’t noticed this blog is written by a family man?