The US Department of Transportation has officially launched its family seating program. Under a proposed rule announced today airlines would be required to provide adjacent seats for families traveling with a passenger 13 or younger, assigned at the time of booking. Airlines could be subject to fines for noncompliance.
The Department considers family seating to be a basic service, essential for the provision of adequate air transportation, that must be included in the advertised fare. Under this proposal, a carrier’s failure to provide family seating would subject it to civil penalties on a per passenger (child) basis, and if the carrier charged families a fee beyond the fare to secure family seating, the carrier would be subject to civil penalties for each fee imposed.
– DOT proposal
The proposed rule would apply to all airlines operating or marketing flights to, from, or within the United States. This includes foreign carriers. It would, however, only apply to flights on aircraft with 30 seats or more on board.
Airlines would be obligated to “make every reasonable effort to provide adjacent seat assignments to a young child and accompanying adult at the time of booking.” If adjusting the booking flow to deliver the benefit in real-time is too onerous the DOT will allow up to 48 hours after the tickets are purchased for the airline to resolve the issue.
If the seats cannot be assigned, passengers are entitled to a full refund. Passengers would have up to seven days to make a decision on the refund offer, so long as the flight was purchased more than two weeks from departure.
Should a family choose to wait for seats to become available the airline is expected to assign them and notify the passengers in advance. If they do not become available the family must be offered the option to wait until the next flight where adjacent seats are available, at no additional fare cost. If the family chooses this approach, the airline would not be required to refund the tickets if adjacent seating does not become available. This seems like a large loophole the airlines could use, though full details on how it would be enforced are unclear.
The full text of the proposed rule is available here.
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