The Biden administration has proposed a rule that would prohibit additional fees for seating family members together on planes. This is a Delta Air Lines plane leaving the gate on July 12, 2021, at Logan International Airport in Boston.
Michael Dwyer/AP
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Michael Dwyer/AP
The US Department of Transportation is proposing a ban on airlines charging “extra fees” for seating families together, aimed at reducing the cost of flying with young children.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard told reporters on Wednesday that the new rule could save families hundreds of dollars per round-trip flight.
“The idea that parents should sit next to their children on a flight is common sense and seems like something that should become standard practice,” Buttigieg said.
“As someone who has experience flying with toddlers — my husband and I have traveled with our 2-year-old twins many times — families don’t need any additional stress or expense when flying, beyond the difficulties parents experience when flying with their kids,” he says.
The new proposal, if approved, would apply to families traveling with children aged 13 and under. When booking flights, whether online or by phone, the child’s age would be noted and airlines would be required to provide an adjacent seat within 48 hours of purchasing the ticket.
If there are no more seats next to each other, airlines will be forced to refund the family’s full travel expenses or choose to wait for nearby seats to become available.
If there are no seats available at the time of departure, families will be allowed to rebook on the next available flight free of charge.
“This is part of a larger picture of consumer protections, including for air travelers, that the Biden-Harris administration has been working on consistently since Day 1,” Buttigieg said.
Nearly $4 billion has been refunded or reimbursed to passengers thanks to new regulations enacted under the Biden administration to better protect airline passengers, he said, and this will be the latest step to keep more money in Americans’ pockets.
Several airlines — including Alaska, American, Frontier and JetBlue — voluntarily eliminated these fees following President Biden’s call in his 2023 State of the Union address to Congress to ban additional fees for family seating.
