American Airlines guarantees families will sit together for free – under these conditions
After the Department of Transportation’s call to stop charging families to sit together on planes, American Airlines now guarantees that children will be seated next to an accompanying adult on its flights.
The new family seating guarantee, which applies to families with kids who are 14 and under, was added to the airline’s customer service plan on Tuesday in preparation for the DOT’s launch of a new dashboard to show people which airlines seat families together for free.
“I appreciate American Airlines becoming the first U.S. airline to commit to putting this guarantee in its customer service plan,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg tweeted on Tuesday.
automatically assign families adjacent seats.
How can families fly together for free on American Airlines?
American Airlines’ seating technology looks to find adjacent seats for travelers who are under the 15 years old and an adult they’re flying with at no additional cost, including Basic Economy fares.
Conditions do have to be met for the guarantee, such as all passengers have to be booked under the same reservation, and adjacent seats are available in the same class of service at the time of booking.
“If these conditions aren’t met, we will still try to seat children adjacent to an accompanying adult,” according to the airline’s customer service plan.
United Airlines announced it will implement new seat mapping software by early March that will automatically find seats next to each other. There’ll also be more flexibility for families who can’t find seats together, including being able to switch to another flight that has open adjacent seats and is going to the same destination at no additional cost.
The new policy will apply to families with children who are below the age of 12.
Frontier Airlines will also change its seat selection system. The airline typically charges for seat selection, but is working to have adjacent seats automatically assigned at no extra cost for children under 14 and one guardian in their group.
Other airlines, including Breeze and Southwest, have highlighted existing policies and practices that were in place to ensure kids weren’t sitting alone.
What is the government doing to cut down on extra airline fees?
The Biden Administration has previously pledged to crack down on “junk” airline fees, and during his State of the Union address last month, President Joe Biden specifically noted how airlines charge families just to sit with each other.
“Baggage fees are bad enough – they can’t just treat your child like a piece of luggage,” he said.
Next week, the Department of Transportation is set to publish a “family seating dashboard to show which airlines guarantee families can sit together for free.”
Contributing: Zach Wichter
Kathleen Wong is a travel reporter based in Hawaii. You can reach her at kwong@usatoday.com.