Dad Forced to Pay to Sit With His Toddler on Flight

Dad Forced to Pay to Sit With His Toddler on Flight

I don't know that I agree with his gripe. As a parent you do your due diligence and book in advance to make sure you get seats together or you pay the fee. Failing that, I doubt he would have had any issues with switching seats with whoever had the seat beside his daughter anyway, because I can't imagine someone would deny him the ability to sit with her.

From my limited experience flying, people are almost always willing to switch seats. Especially when it's to accommodate a family, regardless of whether children are involved. I don't really blame this guy for not wanting to take the chance, but I don't think he was ripped off at all.

Agree. I'm no fan of Delta, but I guarantee, the situation would have been resolved by the flight attendant on board. But dad booked the flight under those circumstances. He has no beef.....

Wow, corporate jerkoffs.. That's a bit harsh. So he had to pay the upgrade to get into the area where there were seats together because he didn't plan ahead. He could very well have gotten the upgrade free or switched with someone once there but he chose not to take that chance.

Not necessarily planning ahead could have solved this.. I bought my tickets 3 months ago for this upcoming trip and there is no option to pick my seats..

I think it was from another article that mentioned it was an upgrade. There were single seats available in economy or whatever but there were 2 seats next to each other in business class I think? This is information I was getting from the comments, so perhaps it's not completely accurate. Regardless, he's paying a fee because he didn't book the seats far enough in advance to get them together. Either way it I doubt it was necessary since people are typically nice enough to switch seats if asked. I'm not sure the airline could have done much more myself, they just couldn't guarantee that he'd be be able to switch or upgrade for free the day of the flight for obvious reasons.

That's interesting, because I've never had a problem picking seats when I booked in advance. I think we typically book flights about a month or more in advance.

Seriously, jesus.  Why is this even a story?  It's not "ransom" if the dude knows going in.

When we fly, our two oldest kids are now big enough that they both require their own seats.  Since most planes are typically 3 seats on either side of the aisle, what we'll typically do is grab 2 windows and two aisles along the same row, leaving the middle open.  Our thought being that the middles fill up last and if there is any chance that the flight won't be completely full, it gives us a better chance at having extra room.  If the flight is full, then we've never had any issue getting one of the middle seat people to take a window instead.

Now, on the off chance that somebody (actually TWO somebodies) really, really wants to stay in that middle seat ... I have no gripe.  I'll consider that person a jerk and we'll complain amongst ourselves about him, for sure ... but I'm not going to complain online and rage about the airline.  It ain't their fault.  I made my own bed here.

This dude chose to buy tickets apart from each other.  Why the hell is he surprised that he got exactly what he paid for???  Dumbass.

Haha!! (Not my style, but that would be funny)

I can't either. This makes no sense. Perhaps he made a big fuss about it, because many of the airline people working at the gates don't always remember that they are there to help the customers?

Hopefully, this will empower more ticketing and gate clerks to find solutions to simple needs of passengers?

That's the thing, it never got to that point. He didn't want to take the chance, which I can understand to a point, so he paid the fee instead of asking to change at the gate because they couldn't guarantee that they'd be able to change his seats and couldn't force another passenger to switch with him. The problem is this, in my opinion, he wanted to get a free upgrade or for the airline to move another person without their permission. To me, neither of those expectations were fair. Even if he didn't pay for or ask for a change of seats, I'm pretty much certain if he asked the person seated next to his daughter that they would have switched with him without a fuss.

Dad needs to learn how airlines work these days.  Tickets are sold dirt cheap (not really but that's what they tell you) to accommodate those who want to fly as cheaply as possible, don't check luggage, don't care when they board or where they sit.  If you want to board early, get more leg room, pick your seats or check more than one bag you pay additional fees.

As @David in FL assengers will always help out a family but there's always the chance that on a full flight it won't happen so you need to book your flight accordingly.

That's only a 500 mile flight and they already got $1,200.00 from the guy? I understand he made choices beforehand but my god that's a bit steep when compared to my family flying to southeast asia at $1,500.00 a ticket covering 15,000 miles with a connection flight. Also children get a discounted rate I thought.

I can only imagine it was a last minute round trip flight for 2.

*edit* I didn't realize it was only a 500 mile flight. I would have just drove for that price anyway....

Children don't get that big of a discount at all from my experience flying over the past 3 years... It might be 10% less than the adult..