The new seating policy comes at no extra charge. (Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash)
American Airlines has joined United Airlines and Frontier Airlines in changing up its policies regarding family travel. Following last summer’s travel fiasco, which ensued when airlines could not meet passenger demand and ended up stranding an unprecedented number of travelers, the Biden administration began focusing on U.S. airlines’ customer service plans with regard to services provided when flights were canceled or delayed. This spotlight also resulted in the Department of Transportation (DOT) calling out the airlines to stop charging families to sit together on planes.
American’s new family seating guarantee spells out that children 14 and under will be seated next to an accompanying adult on its flights—at no extra cost—but it does come with caveats.
Details on American Airlines’ Family Policy
The guaranteed seating includes Basic Economy fares, but keep in mind there are conditions that must all be met. These include that everyone must be booked in the same reservation; adjacent seats are available in the same class of service your child is ticketed at the time of booking; you choose seats for the entire reservation or skip seats for the entire reservation (if you choose Basic Economy, then skip choosing seats for the entire reservation); you don’t make a change to your seat assignments once they’re assigned to you; the plane’s seat layout allows it based on the number of children in your reservation; and the original flight isn’t switched to a smaller aircraft. According to the airline’s recently updated (this week) Customer Service Plan, if these conditions aren’t met, they “will still try to seat children adjacent to an accompanying adult.” If the airline can’t find adjacent seats, it will rebook your flight at no extra cost or refund your ticket if you decide not to travel.
The airline also noted it had been seating families together since 2019, but the policy is now online, and it is also now enforceable by the DOT, which is preparing to launch a new dashboard indicating which airlines seat families together for free.
United Airlines
For more information, visit aa.com
