Air travel is fraught with uncomfortable moments. One such moment for families traveling with young children is the possibility of finding themselves separated from their young kids once they take their seats on an airplane—oftentimes even when they’ve booked their flights on the same reservation.
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), a handful of airlines, including American Airlines, Frontier Airlines, JetBlue Airways, and Alaska Airlines, guarantee that kids age 13 and under booked on the same reservation with an adult will be seated with at least one adult for no additional fee. But booking your reservation together doesn’t always mean sitting together. Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and Allegiant Air, for example, are among the airlines that do not guarantee adjacent seats for kids 13 and under and their accompanying adult unless travelers pay an additional fee for those seat assignments.
That’s despite a July 2022 notice from the DOT’s Office of Aviation Consumer Protection encouraging airlines to do everything they can to ensure that children 13 or younger are seated next to an accompanying adult at no additional charge.
The problem families face is that basic economy fares or seats on low-cost airlines often don’t include the option to select a specific seat ahead of time (or even at all) unless you pay extra to do so. So families often have to pay more to sit together, or risk being seated at random and apart from each other.
In 2023, United unveiled a partial solution: a dynamic seat map for groups traveling with children under 12 that highlights adjacent seats on the plane, allowing children under 12 to sit next to an adult in their party at no extra cost.
When seat selection isn’t included in the airfare or class of travel, the fee for choosing a precise seat on the plane prior to boarding can range from $10 to upwards of $100 per person depending on the airline, the route, and the fare class.
For families who don’t have assigned seats, enter another potentially uncomfortable onboard moment: asking the person seated next to your child if they’d mind changing seats with you. Of course, if that passenger is squished into a middle seat and flying solo, you’re likely offering them something more attractive, and the decision on their part might be easy. But if you’re asking someone to downgrade the seat they’ve potentially paid to book, the situation is stickier.
“You should never be expected to switch your airplane seat so a family can sit together,” says Shelley Marmor, a travel advisor for car rental website DiscoverCars.
If it’s important to you that your family is seated together, then plan and pay for it in advance when booking, Marmor says. She adds that if she didn’t pay for a specific seat and doesn’t have a strong preference about where she sits on a flight, she’ll almost always agree to a reasonable change of seats to help a family sit together.
“Choosing seats costs extra, but so do lots of things when traveling with kids. Expecting strangers to give up their chosen spots because you didn’t want to spend the extra money is entitlement, not an emergency,” Marmor says.
Maureen Poschman, president of Aspen-based public relations agency, Promo Communications, disagrees, saying she thinks passengers should always agree to move seats if it helps families sit together. She estimates she’s done so on more than 10 flights.
“One time, I even sat in a middle seat, but generally it’s been more of a painless change of just moving a few rows forward or back,” Poschman says. She calls the whole topic “a bit karmic” since she recalls asking people to move seats many times so she could sit with her kids on flights when they were still young.
Poschman still remembers a time when someone seated next to her twins—then five years old and, luckily, seasoned travelers—refused to give up their seat so she could sit with them.
“As long as they had their favorite stuffed animal, a book, and headphones for a movie, it was all good,” Poschman says of her daughters, adding that having experienced that incident herself likely made her more accommodating to others.
If plushies and electronics won’t work for keeping your kid content when seated away from you, you should be aware, too, that airline crew aren’t able to come to your rescue.
“As a flight attendant, I can’t make anyone switch seats,” says Heather Poole, a flight attendant for a major U.S. carrier and the author of Cruising Altitude: Tales of Crashpads, Crew Drama, and Crazy Passengers at 35,000 Feet.
“I think less experienced travelers think I have magical powers to make passengers move,” she says, adding that she always tells them they can ask around to see if other passengers may be willing to change seats.
Poole says many passengers are less inclined to want to change seats these days because they’ve paid extra for aisle seats, exit row seats, and seats near the front of the aircraft in order to be more comfortable or to get off the plane quicker to make a connection.
“If one parent is seated next to a child, you’re good, be grateful. To get a family of four all together in a row is difficult,” Poole says.
She recommends that if you don’t want to pay for all your seats together when booking, pay the extra fee for at least one aisle seat so you have more trading power in the moment.
Be open to different eventualities, too, she says.
“One time, when I was traveling as a passenger, I placed my five-year-old next to a businessman and went to my seat in a different part of the plane. He quickly asked me if I wanted to switch seats,” she says.
That said, summer air travel is predicted to be a “recipe for frustration” per CNN. With the high number of travelers (2025 is expected to be the busiest summer for air travel in 15 years, according to the Federal Aviation Administration) and disruptions resulting from staffing issues and aging infrastructure, you may want to hedge your bets.
If you’re flying on an airline that doesn’t guarantee kids a seat next to their accompanying adult without paying for the pleasure, consider erring on the side of caution and shelling out the extra money to ensure closeness.
“The bottom line is that kindness is optional, while planning is not. Families need to take responsibility, not rely on the generosity—or guilt—of others to solve a problem that could’ve been avoided,” says Marmor.
