What a strange regression unassigned seats are anyway. We've had seat map selection technology for at least a couple of decades. Unassigned seating isn't saving anyone any money - it's just a strange tax on relationships.
It allows those who care to be charged for caring, and thus subsidize the tickets of those who don't care, as well as to lower the headline price of tickets which helps with marketing.
> It allows those who care to be charged for caring, and thus subsidize the tickets of those who don't care...
I don't for one nanosecond believe that the people who don't care are getting cheaper tickets out of the deal. I'm sure the companies are only too happy to pocket the extra money.
I worked in the industry (albeit for only about 6 months…). I completely believe that people who don’t bring bags or choose seats are saving money. Hell, if you don’t care when you anrrive you can get the anirline to pay /you/ in the form of a voucher for a later flight. Even in the face of inflation the base-price of an airline ticket has remained relatively constant for half a decade.
What has changed is that you get less and less convenience for your $ in coach. Most flights make most of their money on the 5 business travelers who pay 5-10x the minimum seat price the day before the plane leaves.
Businesses already charge as much as the market will bear. If they could charge more money and provide nothing extra in return, they would. They don't need an excuse. That's how the free market works.
It follows that competition is creating negative price pressure. There is no other explanation for why they don't charge more money already.
Airlines' margins are so low, and price competition is so intense, that I'd bet it really does mostly work out that way in general.
That said I doubt they're directly making much money from people paying a la carte for assigned seats. I bet they get a lot more value out it letting them turn free seat selection as a perk to entice people to sign up for their credit card.
Many people use Google or Expedia or Kayak or similar to buy their airline tickets rather than the airline's own site, and almost reflexively clicks on the cheapest ticket. Especially the type of person who will refuse to pay a convenience fee.
Any airline that pockets the fees rather than using it to lower fares is going to lose a lot of business on competitive routes.
Except choosing your own seat costs the airline absolutely nothing. The competitive pressure you speak of does not require them to cut this particular corner in order to be able to race to the bottom, it is simply greed on the airlines' part.
> and thus subsidize the tickets of those who don't care
I think that most people care about their seat assignment, either because they want to sit near someone, or they prefer aisle or window, or they prefer to sit away from the restrooms or towards the front of the aircraft, etc.
In my opinion, the real purpose of this is to obscure the all-inclusive price of the ticket.
You don't have to fly much to know some seats are better than others. I wish I could afford to fly first class everywhere. Aisle seats let you stick your legs out when nobody is coming by and so you get more legroom. Window seats let you see outside. Seats near the engines can be loud.
I long ago decided I'd pay extra for economy plus (or whatever the airline calls it) the cost isn't much more and the legroom is nice. My wife doesn't care (she is short so doesn't need legroom)
No, what it allows is for the airline to nickel and dime those of us who actually have extra money to spend on these things, while those who can only barely afford the airfare itself (an increasingly large percentage) are made to suffer.
Most people care. Most people who don't pay care, too—they just can't (safely/comfortably) afford to pay.
This would be true if all seating locations were the same.
We might all have paid the same fare, but sitting at the back of the plane in the last aisle seat before the bathroom is something that a lot of people are clearly willing to pay to avoid.
Well, I take such seats on long distance flights (France to Japan, with one stop), and we take the same last aisle seats before the toilets, on both planes (A380 and B787) and on both way. Overall we are satisfied and will do again :
- no one bothering you behind and you do not bother anyone when reclining the seat
- easy access to toilets AND to water/snacks at the back
Maybe it depends on airlines and on what other people eat before their flight :D
I think it depends on the plane, sometimes those seats don't recline. In some narrow-body jets, this seat is normally where the queue for the toilet forms. People end up constantly standing right next to you, or the odors from the washroom can certainly be smelt. I've even been on some overnight flights where the flight attendants are constantly accessing the overhead areas, and making noise making it impossible to sleep.
The point wasn't about that specific seat, just that certain seats in the same fare class are more desirable than others.
Hopefully this would get extended to all vulnerable persons such as the caretakers of special needs adults. Like the sibling of a severally autistic adult.
This should be extended to literally everyone. It is utterly ridiculous that airlines are allowed to charge fees for something like choosing a seat, which costs them nothing and is pure greed to charge for.
Well, if it allows them to offer cheaper seats to people that don't care because now they can accommodate a party of six adults travelling for vacation together then I'm for it. They care to sit together, they can pay more, I can pay less.
I wouldn't mind paying to sit next to my kids so much if the middle seats were free to select, so I just had to pay for the aisle or window. It seems like blatant greed, and also encourages the behavior of selecting the aisle/window and planning to swap if someone sits in the middle, which complicates boarding and possibly stops other families from sitting together.
Yesterday, I flew with my 11 year old on Southwest. Our first flight was three hours late, we missed our connection and were in the last boarding group on the new flight, which took off at 10:30 pm. He's sat alone before and it's fine, but our bags weren't organized in way to make that easy, and on the late flight they turn off all the lights and it just seems a little strange to sit between strangers in the dark for hours. He was also changing timezones and landed at what felt like 3 am to him.
It just seemed like an unnecessary stressor after a long day of travel for a relatively young person.
Oh interesting. I was wondering about the trend over the last few years for every single seat selection, no matter how terrible, had an upcharge -- the airline planned to put me on one of them for +$0, so not having a +$0 option felt odd.
We don't pay extra to sit with our kids, but the trick does require a little bit of chutzpah.
Nobody wants to get stuck sitting next to someone else's unattended kid on a flight. And no flight attendant wants unattended kids on their plane, either. So all you have to do is, when you get on the plane tell the flight attendant stationed by the plane's door that you weren't seated next to your kids, and what seats everyone is sitting in. Then proceed to your assigned seats. They will gladly sort things out for you, so you should only have to wait a few minutes for someone to come along and tell you your new seat assignments.
I appreciate that you acknowledge the inconvenience to others by using the word chutzpah. Your method slows down, and complicates, the boarding process for everyone else on the plane. Everyone's different, but with my kids, I'd much rather just pay for the convenience of being able to quickly get on the plane and get seated without making folk around me frustrated.
Everyone's different, but with my kids, I'd much rather just pay for the convenience of being able to quickly get on the plane and get seated without making folk around me frustrated
The airlines have engineered this situation in order to extract some extra money out of you. They are inflicting a social externality (annoyance) on both you and other passengers in order to upsell you and profit from the arrangement. That’s why this law is needed.
Completely agreed, and just to clarify, at no point have I argued in favor of this law. But in a situation such as this, whether or not I agree with what an airline is doing, I'll typically take the path of least resistance for me and mine (same with OP!).
Absolutely. I'm not happy about this way of doing it, either, but it's the best overall option that has been provided by the airlines. The upcharge for getting seated together at booking time is extortionate, and not at all proportional to the inconvenience created by sorting it out at boarding time instead.
That's there for people who need to deal with getting strollers collapsed and ready to be stored with the luggage, and kids safely in their seats. OP's method extends into the normal boarding process, because you have to wait for other passengers to get on and be willing to move their seats.
Also, the early boarding is for whatever people interpret it being for. Most airlines are intentionally vague about justifications for early boarding. "If you need extra time or assistance to board...", and lots of people take advantage. I know a particularly "chutzpah" guy (who is young, has no disability, nor children) who always boards during this period because "nobody's stopped me!"
It also applies to small children, in my experience. But if you're flying with a toddler it's a lot easier to convince the gate agent to help you sort it out before boarding begins.
Early boarding does nothing to help with different assigned seats. It actually does the opposite because no one else who could consent to a seat swap is on the plane
I've had the stewardess notice my kid in an adult only seat (turns out only one side of that plane has airmasks that fit kids or something like that) and move us, then tell whoever we displaced to take our old seats.
If I was a flight attendant, I’d use this reasoning regularly even if it wasn’t true. Hard to disprove on the spot. And these kinds of things can even vary from order to order of the same aircraft between (and within) airlines.
> I appreciate that you acknowledge the inconvenience to others by using the word chutzpah. Your method slows down, and complicates, the boarding process for everyone else on the plane.
I disagree it is them at the root cause of this inconvenience.
If I were implementing a seating algorithm, my instinct would be to sit members of the same booking together. Presumably members of the same booking are family or friends.
However the actual algorithm the airlines chose to use do not do this. This must be a conscious decision. And the reason for that is they want you to pay extra to sit together.
They have decided to make the deliberate choice to not seat families together.
They have decided that their profits are more important than your annoyance.
So I mostly agree with you if assigned seating was free. The problem I've had twice is where someone had asked me to trade a paid seat for a worse one to sit with a spouse. Obviously different than a child, but it speaks to something else I hate about flying. The airline makes their problems your problems. For example: flight delayed but we can rebook you for a flight that would have been cheaper if you had just booked that one, and you have no recourse.
Imagine going to a restaurant and they say they are out of steak but here is a burger, but we won't give you the difference because that's what you originally ordered.
What the rule should be is airlines can't charge for seats in the back half of their airplane.
Personally I pay for seat assignments but I’m sympathetic. He didn’t create this problem. The airline knows the birthdate of every passenger before they show you the option to pay for seats. They are deliberately seating young kids alone. They didn’t do this before, but they made an intentional business decision to do this to extract more cash.
I never said that it's OP's fault that airlines don't seat families together, I just highlighted the impact of the decision OP made in that moment. As I've said elsewhere in this thread, I (as a parent of kids) am completely onboard with this proposed rule and have wanted it for a long time.
I don't think there's another decision to be made - I'm fine with them making the decision, especially because they're self-aware (hence my saying that I appreciate them admitting that fact).
- OP made the decision to put the onus on a multi-billion dollar corporation to resolve the issue and respect families - good for OP, hell yes, I agree!
- OP also made the decision to inconvenience everyone boarding behind them
Both of these things can absolutely be true at the same time.
Edit: Going further, this is actually a really great way of highlighting how bullshit this policy is. A family, like OP, will make what they view as the best path forward for themselves in this situation, at the expense of inconveniencing everyone behind them. If the root cause is the airline's policy, then this is a great example of how this policy can inconvenience everyone on a plane.
> - OP also made the decision to inconvenience everyone boarding behind them
No, the airline did that when they didn't seat the family together.
If a bank has so many convoluted steps it takes me 10 minutes to withdraw cash from an ATM, am I at fault for holding up everyone else waiting to use the ATM? Should I simply not use the ATM at all in fear of delaying others?
The billion dollar corporation did a stupid thing, it is THEIR fault boarding was not as fast as it otherwise could have been, NOT the paying customer's.
>No, the airline did that when they didn't seat the family together.
The airline gave them the option of sitting together, and OP chose the option that will inconvenience others.
>If a bank has so many convoluted steps it takes me 10 minutes to withdraw cash from an ATM, am I at fault for holding up everyone else waiting to use the ATM?
No, but you are at fault if they give you the option for instant withdrawal for $0.25.
>The billion dollar corporation did a stupid thing, it is THEIR fault boarding was not as fast as it otherwise could have been, NOT the paying customer's.
Did you happen to miss my edit? The one where I highlight that the root is the policy, and the fallout from OP's choice between the two options given to them is a great example of why it's bullshit?
> No, but you are at fault if they give you the option for instant withdrawal for $0.25.
You can stick that.
What if the "instant" option was $25? What if it was $250?
Your logic falls down completely.
I am genuinely horrified you think it's OK for a multi-billion dollar corporation to charge customers - who are already paying for a service - MORE money for a faster service when it used to be included as part of the original payment for services, and we know very well they could if they wanted to, but they're just gouging customers for every increasingly more money
That's super kind of you, thanks for the level-headed discussion.
>What if the "instant" option was $25? What if it was $250?
>Your logic falls down completely.
Sort of, I suppose. Again, not saying the policy is OK, just saying that there are different kinds of fallout based on the decisions we make within a fucked up system. You're taking my comment a lot further than you need to be.
>I am genuinely horrified you think it's OK for a multi-billion dollar corporation to charge customers - who are already paying for a service - MORE money for a faster service when it used to be included as part of the original payment for services, and we know very well they could if they wanted to, but they're just gouging customers for every increasingly more money
Please take a deep breath and chill out on the "horrified" and "stick that" rhetoric, and then begin to patiently read through all of my comments on this thread. I have VERY SPECIFICALLY said in this thread that I don't like this policy, either. I have VERY SPECIFICALLY said in this thread that, as a parent, I'm glad that this rule is being proposed. Perhaps they're in response to other people, but they're all in this chain.
You're very right to be passionate about this, but I have a feeling that your emotions are preventing you from having a level-headed discussion at this point. I say this because I've repeatedly told you I don't like this policy, and that the fallout from OP's actions highlights why the policy is bullshit, but you're still telling me that you're horrified that I think this policy is OK. That's not at all what I'm saying, and it seems that others in this chain have understood that fairly well.
If you want to have a good discussion, this, right here, IMO is the reason we have to make decisions "within a fucked up system" (as you put it).
You are letting these companies push you around. You accepted the $0.25 "instant" fee at the ATM, and in fact said I would be an a-hole if I didn't and held other people up because of it. At that point you are a very big part of the problem, because you are not just allowing them to get away with it, you're actively encouraging it, and saying anyone who doesn't is actually the problem.
Stand up for yourself. Stand up for others. Don't take the BS. Don't blame regular folks for what the big corporations are doing, make noise about the corporation is very obviously at fault here and they are the problem making our society worse.
> I've repeatedly told you I don't like this policy
But you clearly don't feel that way strongly, otherwise you wouldn't be saying I'm the bad guy for not paying the extra $0.25 (or $25) "instant" fee at the ATM and holding others up.
Not really. I pick my battles - there are places I fight back, and other places where I may opt not to pick a fight for the sake of convenience. But just because I'm willing to pay a fee within a system that currently exists doesn't mean that I haven't actively worked to elect politicians who have stated that they want to make these changes. There are plenty of other exorbitant fees that airlines charge that I have refused to pay and have worked around on my own, but sometimes I may bite the bullet for the sake of my own convenience while the politicians I supported work to put these proposed rules in place. And wouldn't you know it, this thread is literally about them doing that. Huh...
>You accepted the $0.25 "instant" fee at the ATM, and in fact said I would be an a-hole if I didn't and held other people up because of it.
My exact statement was, "No, but you are at fault if they give you the option for instant withdrawal for $0.25.". At no point have I called you an asshole.
>... and saying anyone who doesn't is actually the problem. ... Don't blame regular folks...
I truly do not understand how I can make what I have repeated about who's truly "at fault" here any clearer than I already have. Good gracious.
>But you clearly don't feel that way strongly, otherwise you wouldn't be saying I'm the bad guy...
Again, with the emotionally-charged rhetoric. Just because one is "at fault" doesn't make one "a bad guy" or an "a-hole". I've never insinuated that you would be a bad person for choosing that option, just like I've never said that OP is a bad person - again, I applauded them for being aware of the impact their decision causes while still being willing to take what they chose as the best path forward for them and their family. Causing people to wait ten minutes because you opted not to pay a fee doesn't make you a bad person - I'm not going to cast judgement because I don't know if the person at the ATM simply doesn't want to pay it, or can't afford it, or what. But that doesn't mean that they're not at fault for making people wait - and that's OK.
Life's fairly nuanced, bud, and sometimes we have to make crappy decisions within a shitty system that we're currently working to fight. That's capitalism for ya, and it sucks. Again, I truly think that you need to go outside and get some fresh air. I'm an outdoorsman myself, and I've stumbled upon your content from time to time - maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to put HN down, hop in your Jeep and go for a drive?
I did the same, I noticed myself getting more frustrated over an internet debate than I should be haha. Though, it's incredibly more humid here than it usually is, and now I feel gross and kinda regret it LOL.
Much love, bud. Hope you and yours enjoy the rest of your day. :)
It's that airlines are causing this issue though. They have websites to choose seats, and could very easily do this for free. Flight attendants already verify other aspects of seating, so does preboarding, so the entire workflow is done.
Instead the airline makes people pay, or they'll break up a family. That includes the lack of a guardian if there are issues.
100% the airlines' purposeful fault, attempting to extort cash or everyone is in a bad situation. Even the poor flight attendants, their own employees.
As a single dude, I applaud this law, and buddy's attempts to not pay extortion.
For the third or forth time in this thread, I've never argued against the fact that the root cause of this all is the airlines being extortionate. I was clearly (at least I figured it was, my bad I suppose) discussing a reaction to a reaction to a root cause.
I actually find the idea of the chaos that would unfold after putting my toddler in one seat and then going somewhere else to sit quite amusing. Haven’t had the chance yet, but I’m not paying a high fee for a seat on a short flight.
Edit: just adding to that, pretty sure flight attendants or other passengers would gladly resolve the issue that the airlines created.. it’s just not practical with small children
If I pay for an aisle seat, I’m not going to give it up for some unprepared parents who skipped going on an airline where you can pick your seats. That’s not my problem. I tend to travel alone and when I don’t I get an assigned seat for my partner/friends. I will of course be courteous to anyone asking but if they keep it up I’ll ask the attendants to please help me, I’m being bullied.
Also going to say if anyone asks me to change seats for this (and wouldn’t involve me separating too much from my own co-travellers, and even then, we’re adults that can deal with a few hours apart on a trip together), I’ll 100% do it.
Absolutely nothing wrong with asking. Worst that should ever happen to anyone making a reasonable ask is a “no”. I’ll enjoy being a part of the snub against the airlines and their junk fees.
I fly often enough that I don’t really care for my aisle/window/whatever seat if I have one. They’re all pretty much the same.
as a parent it would be fun to have my kid sit in the middle seat between two random people and let them deal with him on the flight while I relax far away
It's one thing for a government to give free incentives, but the government shouldn't be forcing company pricing unless it's to encourage a free market. So basically everyone's seat price will go up now because they have to make others free.
I mean, this makes a lot of sense, a parent needs to be sitting near a child if you don't want complaints from all the people in the airplane (obviously this is based on age)
Over and over this is repeated, but wages are not the reason for decline in birth rates IMO.
Talk to your friends, they might verbally say 'money', but then you see them go on trips and buy food at restaurants. Its much easier socially to say 'money', than 'I don't like/want kids'.
The only reason I have a ton of kids, is because I am planning on setting them up for political purposes as I play Dynasty. Its selfish, and I hope to make lots of money and power from them.
No one else has this mentality. The better question is: "Why does someone want kids?"
Given most people are hedonists(assumed). Would a hedonist want kids? Maybe. They are cute which is dopamine inducing. But less fancy food and lots of crying pains.
> Talk to your friends, they might verbally say 'money', but then you see them go on trips and buy food at restaurants. Its much easier socially to say 'money', than 'I don't like/want kids'.
Going on trips and eating out are luxuries some can afford because they don't have children...
Depends on the restaurant. I'm apparently the only white family that will bring my kids to an Indian restaurant in this city. Once in a while I'll see kids with their India family, but all the other customers are adults who seem to think Indian restaurants are not for kids. (the staff seems to agree that they are serving family friendly food - it is what they ate growing up)
No, these are two different topics. Travel and food became less expensive because technology advances. This is what we'd expect to happen and has nothing to do with kids.
We got to the point where travel, food, and child rearing were all readily affordable things. Now it is no longer the case.
Our technological ability to travel or produce food has not diminished, indeed these things are cheaper than ever. The cost of child rearing, relative to people's earnings, has gone up.
I think that's an interesting thought, but would frame it a little bit differently. I'm not sure the true cost of child rearing has increased in the bare minimum requirements are still quite cheap. Instead, I think there's been an escalation of expectation or perceived minimum around both child rearing and material life.
It would be fascinating to read or perform a study looking at what it would cost to obtain the median material conditions of life from say 1924.
I would expect it would be quite cheap. I imagine a tiny house smaller than modern apartments located in a rural area. There would be no healthcare, cell phone, Electronics, or car.
If these were the expectations, I think it is still very possible to support the family and children on a single income.
Edit: I found this awesome USDA guide from 1934 for how to set up a substance farm on 1 acre.
Sure, it probably wouldn't be too expensive to achieve a typical 1924 quality of life, it would be even cheaper to achieve an 1824 quality of life, but it should be deeply alarming that a typical 1994 quality of life is out of reach.
Again, you used to be able to have healthcare, and a cellphone, and electronics, and a car, and all these other things (all of which were much more expensive to produce at the time) while simultaneously comfortably raising a family. A nice home in a good area was once a staple of the middle class, not a luxury for the elites.
We didn't sacrifice having children to improve our quality of life elsewhere, technological development has allowed us to keep our material possessions as we get poorer and poorer, while the costs of life that can't be reduced through technology - real estate, education, child care, etc - skyrocket.
What do you think stops us from going back to 1994 material conditions and costs?
Population is a big one that is a pretty big non-starter.
Urbanization would be difficult.
Housing and zoning codes might be possible.
Childcare regulations is possible but unpopular.
Lowering taxes to 1994 levels is possible, but unpopular.
I think you hit the nail on the head with hedonism as a root cause, particularly happiness utilitarianism in my mind.
There are lots of sentimental reasons a romantic might have kids even if it makes them less happy. In our current culture, sentimental and romantic are synonymous with stupid or foolish.
Birth rates fall when societies get richer, not when they get poorer. Additionally, rates are falling all the same in the states with the most generous welfare policies.
Birth rates fall when infant mortality falls, which tends to coincide with societies getting richer.
At the same time, countries tend to get richer when their birth rates fall, as people are spending their time working to produce economic value instead of having kids.
Compare say France, with a fertility rate of 1.82 and a GDP per capita of $43k to South Korea with a fertility rate of 0.88 and a GDP per capita of $42k.
Do not mistake correlation with causation. And do not mistake society getting richer with the individuals in a society having more access to the time and space necessary for raising a family.
At least in the US, I think children are perceived as a nuisance right now, and adding special rules for them for airlines doesn't really change that. If anything it makes it worse. Some campaign like "don't get a dog, get a child" might have more appeal. E.g. one could point out how you can't bring a dog on a plane except in a carrier but a child gets their own seat.
Adopting a child is generally much harder than having your own. "Normal" kids rarely end up in foster or adoption situations. You see abused kids - you need a degree in psychology to help them recover from their background, or you see kids defects (genetic, mental, or otherwise) who need special care that is much harder than normal to give - while this could happen to you by random change, odds are it won't. Once in a while a "normal" kid has their family die (not just parents, extended family as well) and end up in the system, but this is rare. I'm glad for those parents who do take on foster kids, but it is not easy.
Adopting overseas is not a good answer - there is a lot of fraud (most countries will not even allow it anymore - it is too easy to kidnap a baby and by the time the rightful parents can get to authorities the baby is in a different country and impossible to trace down). There is still some opportunity, but make sure you are not unwittingly kidnapping a child.
That's certainly one of the issues - if having children was separate from raising them, like how pet breeders are generally not pet owners, children would be more of a fungible commodity and everything would be a lot simpler. I'm not saying it should be like that, just that economically it's one of the reasons the child business is not an efficient free market.
Define collapse. The world population is on track to start declining starting in the next few decades. However with 8-9 billion humans how large a loss would you require before you call it a collapse is a debatable question.
Increase in global population will continue for a few decades, but there are more old people than young people and it seems unlikely that we will get to a phase where births are high enough to counteract coming the death by old age in the near future.
I believe this is a good thing even if it will cause many issues. Humanity will have to live on earth for a long time and infinite growth is not sustainable. So at some point the population has to fluctuate. We will have to accept this reality.
If the status quo continues, the population pyramid inverts and you get too many pensioners trying to cash in retirement investments whose value is backed up by too few people still in work.
How much of a problem this is depends how close your economy is to replacement level, the closer the better. And I say "economy" rather than "country" because if (for the sake of argument) 100% of your investments and suppliers* are in the Bay Area then that's what you need to care about even if (like me) you're not American.
Your laborers are working which is good for GDP. They are taxed. The laborers are earning experience which produces some sort of multiplier of efficiency.
For the right: More workers are good for economies
For the left: More workers leaving the home mean higher social/political awareness and education. More children getting preschool/pre-k education.
For the children: I cannot tell you how many times I've heard things like, "My kid doesnt talk" or some other delay, only to find out they have been at home spending all day with a parent for years. I've further seen this as my 3rd child pretends to be the same age as my 2nd child, speech and physical abilities.
The worst thing is having a person stay at home for 5 years, watching a single child.
While I'm certainly pro free childcare, it is worth noting that even countries with both free child care and generous paternity leave, like Sweden, still have very low birth rates. So while these things are probably good in themselves, they are no guarantee that they'll significantly improve brith rates.
The overwhelming majority of US legislators have no concept of what it means to run a business that serves customers what they want. The market has already corrected this situation. Some carriers offer the service free of charge, some don’t. Parents are completely able to see the policy associated with a specific ticket before they purchase.
> Parents are completely able to see the policy associated with a specific ticket before they purchase.
It's a process of discovery rather than being something that you know up front. You generally have to get pretty deep into the process of purchasing a ticket before you learn how much it will cost to pre-book your seats. If you don't like it, you have to start the process anew with another airline.
And this is deliberate by the airlines. They want you to invest some time before they reveal the true, all-inclusive price, so you're less likely to look elsewhere.
"Junk Fees" are a direct result of consumers demanding lower base fares.
Inflation-adjusted, it has _never_ been cheaper to just get on a plane and fly across the country.
Once you start legislating away the ability for consumers to pick and choose what they want to pay for, some of that cost will just be rolled back into the base fare, making all customers pay more.
Junk fees obscuring true pricing reduce the efficiency of a market. Efficient markets require transparent pricing and surprise fees disclosed later in booking are the opposite of this.
So, yes— please make pricing simple enough that you can disclose everything up front, even if that means many “extras” are rolled into the base fare.
... or some standardised why to compare the total cost across carriers on a meta search engine (kinda what Google Flights allows you to do with luggage).
Yes. But even so, fees like this can also be a backdoor way to do what would otherwise unlawful conduct (discriminating against children or other groups).
For everybody who doesn't travel with kids, who will now see a small increase in base fare, this is a financial negative.
But, I'm with you - "humanizing" airline travel a bit is probably a net good. These days, basically nobody enjoys flying for myriad reasons (almost all of which are vaguely caused by a "race to the bottom")
The cost of this is negligible if it exists at all.
Charging for access to the already-existing seat selection feature when booking is a classic tactic of price discrimination to squeeze more money from people who can afford it.
Should build some rows with mini seats and tiny legroom for the kids.
Make it more like a resort where you hand off the kids to the on-site daycare and enjoy a carefree day. Need a staffer, but the extra seating capacity should cover it.
We have on-board showers, individual cabins, sit down bars, but where’s the onsite daycare?
And adults that want to save money can squeeze into the tiny seats. Once that catches on we can have a new junk fee for an oversized tiny seat, it can be even the new base fare even. /s
If you reflect on what value procreation may have to society, and the role parenting plays in realizing that value, and how parents accomplish this, you may come to realize that its good when parents are responsible for their young children.
That means they need to be near in fraught situations, like air travel.
Meanwhile, I think we can conclude the cost of this rule is low. E.g., several competitive airlines are already doing this. And rationally, we can suppose the proportion of bookings affected by this is low, so this is mainly a matter of updating the booking software.
They made almost a trillion dollars as an industry last year, with 30 billion right off the top in pure profit, and mind you that's a scant few years after the lot of the American one's at least were financially insolvent and crying to Congress for aid when COVID grounded their fleets for WEEK.
I don't think the airlines have a problem justifying their ticket prices, I think they have a greedy bastard executive class problem that's draining them of all their money.
This seems like a dumb rule that's just going to increase airfares for everyone else as companies try to comply with this. Airlines are already required by law to give a refund within 24 hours. If you booked a ticket that doesn't have a signed seating that's the fair class you chose and you get what you get. If you book a ticket with a signed seating and you don't see the seats that you want you have 24 hours to cancel. Otherwise just deal with it.
> If you booked a ticket that doesn't have a signed seating that's the fair class you chose and you get what you get.
n.b. "a signed" -> assigned, "fair" -> fare
What you're in effect saying is that young children & their parents traveling with them should be ineligible for the cheapest fare classes, i.e. you're advocating for what is effectively an extra tax on them. Is that the intention?
Well, I think they're arguing that if you want to be guaranteed to sit next to your child, you need to pay whatever fee is required to select your own seat. That seems normal and mostly, even though I understand why this new policy exists as well. There's plenty of things parents have to pay for like this.
Well, the cheapest fair class doesn't include a features they want, which has a cost to the airline. That seems reasonable. If they are eligible and get to pick seats, then it's a tax on everyone else to support that.
Most of the cost of a flight is fixed. If the plane is empty (other than the minimum airline staff) or full to max weight (not mass!) makes very little difference in the amount of fuel burned.
I'm sorry I use voice to text and sometimes it spells the words wrong. Since you clearly understood what I meant apparently you like to shame people with disabilities that need to use accommodating features.
Yes people who require additional features should pay for additional features. Just because it's an airline doesn't mean you get to aggregate expenses to other customers for the features you want. Would you be okay if overweight people automatically got first class for the same price point as the cheapest fare? Your lifestyle and that includes having children is not the burden of other people to finance.
This rule increases the efficiency of the market. There are two types of people who pay extra for assigned seating:
1) people who need to sit together because they are flying with someone who cannot sit alone. If the fee makes the flight too expensive, they'd rather not fly or will choose a different airline without the fee.
2) people who will pay money to avoid a bit of inconvenience. If the fee makes the flight too expensive, they'll just not pay the fee but will still pay the base fare.
Making the people in #1 pay the fee loses airlines money. Making the people in #2 pay the fee is highly lucrative.
This rule will allow the airlines to make more money because they can now easily target #2 without targetting the people in category #1. Before the law this was more difficult -- how do you properly distinguish between people who have to sit together and people who want to sit together?
Your argument only works in the case where airlines are not flying at or near capacity. If a plane is 60% full you have a case for number one. I submit you have not flown very often lately because I've never seen a plane 60% full in a long long time.
Paying a convenience fee for a convenience is a standard thing to do. Asking other people to pay for your convenience is always a wrong thing to do.
>...I submit you have not flown very often lately because I've never seen a plane 60% full in a long long time.
The load factor will likely vary by location and time of day, but overall from April of 2023 to April of 2024, the load factor was about 83%. This is very close to the historical load factor for US airlines since 2010 or so (except for the COVID years). The only time the overall load factor was around 60% was in 2020.
I've flown in lots of planes that were at 90% capacity. The difference in profit between 90% capacity and 92% capacity is massive because airlines charge a lot more for the last few seats on the plane than they do the first 50% of the seats.
It's not a convenience for parents, it's a requirement.
And it's a different convenience. Many people are paying extra to sit near the front of the plane. Many parents would rather sit near the back near the bathroom.
Disabled people who required specific accommodations for their disability in a specific sense yes need to pay extra. You will see this when they buy a vehicle that requires things like hand controls or a wheelchair lift or other things like that. Those features cost more and there is no expectation that every other car purchaser will chip in to pay for that.
When talking about accessibility to public buildings and making certain basic accessibility features part of the design and construction is different. Trying to conflate the two confuses the argument here. Requiring that your child automatically get a seat next to you for no additional charge in no way relates to ensuring that a wheelchair can make it to the plane.
The ADA is the law (In the US, other countries have their own version which is broadly similar), but you are allowed to not provide a ramp or other disability assistance in cases where it is not reasonable (the ADA defines this in detail). If you look at the rules, most of them do not add very much to the cost of a building - making a hall a little wider so there is room for a wheelchair doesn't cost much. Where it would cost a lot the ADA will generally let you out of doing it.
The additional cost to the airline to pre-book seats is de minimis. Their ticketing and websites already support it. The purpose of charging to pre-book seats is to obscure the all-inclusive price of the ticket and to increase overall revenue.
As a result of this is that it is more difficult for consumers to compare ticket prices between airlines, and consumers are more likely to pay more than planned for airline tickets due to surprise charges.
Except that obese people are a massive cost to society, whilst children are the only means for continuation of human life, and thus of society, and so are supremely vital to it.
There's no additional cost in seating children, or those incapable of self-supervision, with their parent/carer. The low cost airlines force the separation in order to make an inconvenience that they hope to charge for. Like if they wiped your hands with grease as you got in the aeroplane and then charged for hand wipes.
There is an additional cost for that seating especially when the airline has already sold seats and there's no two seats placed together. Most of this is a convenience fee if you know where you want to sit it's worth it to you to pay a little bit extra. So for you to say there's no additional cost is not true especially when the requirement is you must require that the person can cancel or rebook to other flights if those two specific seats you want aren't available. There is definitely a cost to the implementation of this plan.
It is literally asking other customers to pay for one person's convenience.
When a restaurant gives you a plate with your food, the plate is an additional cost for the restaurant. Would you consider a plate to be "an additional feature?" Hey, some people might prefer to get $1 off their bill and eat without a plate. Why not charge everyone else a $1 Plate Fee? As a non-plate eater, I resent having to pay that $1 and get a plate I don't need.
> I'm sorry I use voice to text and sometimes it spells the words wrong. Since you clearly understood what I meant apparently you like to shame people with disabilities that need to use accommodating features.
I had no intention of shaming, the personal attack is really unwarranted. And I obviously had no idea what the reason was. I just stumbled on the text when reading it so I was hoping you could perhaps fix them.
Well the solution in that case is to .. book adjoining seats. If you're the last person to book a flight and there's no adjoining seats, then choose a different flight. The flight couldn't have been that important to you if you're one of the last people reserving, you should be able to just book a different flight where you can reserve the appropriate seats.
The flight couldn't have been that important to you if you're one of the last people reserving
If I'm booking a last minute flight for my whole family and don't have any flexibility in when I leave, it is almost certainly because it is Very Important that we're on that flight.
This. Families don't generally book tickets last minute unless it's a family emergency. At least, that's been my experience - vacations that involve long distance travel are planned months in advance, not days.
In general, the closer to flight time that you book, the more expensive it is. And everybody knows that, so the closer to flight time they book, the more important it is to them.
It’s dumb because costs will be incurred by more than those that directly benefit from it? I’ve got bad news for you about how basically every business under the sun works.
What a strange regression unassigned seats are anyway. We've had seat map selection technology for at least a couple of decades. Unassigned seating isn't saving anyone any money - it's just a strange tax on relationships.
It allows those who care to be charged for caring, and thus subsidize the tickets of those who don't care, as well as to lower the headline price of tickets which helps with marketing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination
(to be clear, there are many good reasons for caring, such as having children, any other personal circumstances, etc)
> It allows those who care to be charged for caring, and thus subsidize the tickets of those who don't care...
I don't for one nanosecond believe that the people who don't care are getting cheaper tickets out of the deal. I'm sure the companies are only too happy to pocket the extra money.
I worked in the industry (albeit for only about 6 months…). I completely believe that people who don’t bring bags or choose seats are saving money. Hell, if you don’t care when you anrrive you can get the anirline to pay /you/ in the form of a voucher for a later flight. Even in the face of inflation the base-price of an airline ticket has remained relatively constant for half a decade.
What has changed is that you get less and less convenience for your $ in coach. Most flights make most of their money on the 5 business travelers who pay 5-10x the minimum seat price the day before the plane leaves.
Businesses already charge as much as the market will bear. If they could charge more money and provide nothing extra in return, they would. They don't need an excuse. That's how the free market works.
It follows that competition is creating negative price pressure. There is no other explanation for why they don't charge more money already.
Airlines' margins are so low, and price competition is so intense, that I'd bet it really does mostly work out that way in general.
That said I doubt they're directly making much money from people paying a la carte for assigned seats. I bet they get a lot more value out it letting them turn free seat selection as a perk to entice people to sign up for their credit card.
Many people use Google or Expedia or Kayak or similar to buy their airline tickets rather than the airline's own site, and almost reflexively clicks on the cheapest ticket. Especially the type of person who will refuse to pay a convenience fee.
Any airline that pockets the fees rather than using it to lower fares is going to lose a lot of business on competitive routes.
Except choosing your own seat costs the airline absolutely nothing. The competitive pressure you speak of does not require them to cut this particular corner in order to be able to race to the bottom, it is simply greed on the airlines' part.
> and thus subsidize the tickets of those who don't care
I think that most people care about their seat assignment, either because they want to sit near someone, or they prefer aisle or window, or they prefer to sit away from the restrooms or towards the front of the aircraft, etc.
In my opinion, the real purpose of this is to obscure the all-inclusive price of the ticket.
You don't have to fly much to know some seats are better than others. I wish I could afford to fly first class everywhere. Aisle seats let you stick your legs out when nobody is coming by and so you get more legroom. Window seats let you see outside. Seats near the engines can be loud.
I long ago decided I'd pay extra for economy plus (or whatever the airline calls it) the cost isn't much more and the legroom is nice. My wife doesn't care (she is short so doesn't need legroom)
No, what it allows is for the airline to nickel and dime those of us who actually have extra money to spend on these things, while those who can only barely afford the airfare itself (an increasingly large percentage) are made to suffer.
Most people care. Most people who don't pay care, too—they just can't (safely/comfortably) afford to pay.
This would be true if all seating locations were the same.
We might all have paid the same fare, but sitting at the back of the plane in the last aisle seat before the bathroom is something that a lot of people are clearly willing to pay to avoid.
Well, I take such seats on long distance flights (France to Japan, with one stop), and we take the same last aisle seats before the toilets, on both planes (A380 and B787) and on both way. Overall we are satisfied and will do again :
- no one bothering you behind and you do not bother anyone when reclining the seat
- easy access to toilets AND to water/snacks at the back
Maybe it depends on airlines and on what other people eat before their flight :D
I think it depends on the plane, sometimes those seats don't recline. In some narrow-body jets, this seat is normally where the queue for the toilet forms. People end up constantly standing right next to you, or the odors from the washroom can certainly be smelt. I've even been on some overnight flights where the flight attendants are constantly accessing the overhead areas, and making noise making it impossible to sleep.
The point wasn't about that specific seat, just that certain seats in the same fare class are more desirable than others.
Hopefully this would get extended to all vulnerable persons such as the caretakers of special needs adults. Like the sibling of a severally autistic adult.
This should be extended to literally everyone. It is utterly ridiculous that airlines are allowed to charge fees for something like choosing a seat, which costs them nothing and is pure greed to charge for.
Well, if it allows them to offer cheaper seats to people that don't care because now they can accommodate a party of six adults travelling for vacation together then I'm for it. They care to sit together, they can pay more, I can pay less.
I wouldn't mind paying to sit next to my kids so much if the middle seats were free to select, so I just had to pay for the aisle or window. It seems like blatant greed, and also encourages the behavior of selecting the aisle/window and planning to swap if someone sits in the middle, which complicates boarding and possibly stops other families from sitting together.
Yesterday, I flew with my 11 year old on Southwest. Our first flight was three hours late, we missed our connection and were in the last boarding group on the new flight, which took off at 10:30 pm. He's sat alone before and it's fine, but our bags weren't organized in way to make that easy, and on the late flight they turn off all the lights and it just seems a little strange to sit between strangers in the dark for hours. He was also changing timezones and landed at what felt like 3 am to him.
It just seemed like an unnecessary stressor after a long day of travel for a relatively young person.
+1, even for someone like me who doesn't have kids, this seems like a good policy move
Oh interesting. I was wondering about the trend over the last few years for every single seat selection, no matter how terrible, had an upcharge -- the airline planned to put me on one of them for +$0, so not having a +$0 option felt odd.
We don't pay extra to sit with our kids, but the trick does require a little bit of chutzpah.
Nobody wants to get stuck sitting next to someone else's unattended kid on a flight. And no flight attendant wants unattended kids on their plane, either. So all you have to do is, when you get on the plane tell the flight attendant stationed by the plane's door that you weren't seated next to your kids, and what seats everyone is sitting in. Then proceed to your assigned seats. They will gladly sort things out for you, so you should only have to wait a few minutes for someone to come along and tell you your new seat assignments.
I appreciate that you acknowledge the inconvenience to others by using the word chutzpah. Your method slows down, and complicates, the boarding process for everyone else on the plane. Everyone's different, but with my kids, I'd much rather just pay for the convenience of being able to quickly get on the plane and get seated without making folk around me frustrated.
Everyone's different, but with my kids, I'd much rather just pay for the convenience of being able to quickly get on the plane and get seated without making folk around me frustrated
The airlines have engineered this situation in order to extract some extra money out of you. They are inflicting a social externality (annoyance) on both you and other passengers in order to upsell you and profit from the arrangement. That’s why this law is needed.
Completely agreed, and just to clarify, at no point have I argued in favor of this law. But in a situation such as this, whether or not I agree with what an airline is doing, I'll typically take the path of least resistance for me and mine (same with OP!).
/shrug
Absolutely. I'm not happy about this way of doing it, either, but it's the best overall option that has been provided by the airlines. The upcharge for getting seated together at booking time is extortionate, and not at all proportional to the inconvenience created by sorting it out at boarding time instead.
Talk to them at check in instead.
Every airline I’ve ever flown boards families with children right after elderly and wheelchairs.
Just take that opportunity. That’s why they’re asking!
That's there for people who need to deal with getting strollers collapsed and ready to be stored with the luggage, and kids safely in their seats. OP's method extends into the normal boarding process, because you have to wait for other passengers to get on and be willing to move their seats.
Also, the early boarding is for whatever people interpret it being for. Most airlines are intentionally vague about justifications for early boarding. "If you need extra time or assistance to board...", and lots of people take advantage. I know a particularly "chutzpah" guy (who is young, has no disability, nor children) who always boards during this period because "nobody's stopped me!"
It also applies to small children, in my experience. But if you're flying with a toddler it's a lot easier to convince the gate agent to help you sort it out before boarding begins.
Early boarding does nothing to help with different assigned seats. It actually does the opposite because no one else who could consent to a seat swap is on the plane
I've had the stewardess notice my kid in an adult only seat (turns out only one side of that plane has airmasks that fit kids or something like that) and move us, then tell whoever we displaced to take our old seats.
If I was a flight attendant, I’d use this reasoning regularly even if it wasn’t true. Hard to disprove on the spot. And these kinds of things can even vary from order to order of the same aircraft between (and within) airlines.
The idea is to get noticed early, if you have a seat assignment issue, or get a row if it's a free-for-all seating airline.
Again, it's entirely different if it's a toddler/small child vs a teenager; teenagers are probably happy to be away from the parents for awhile.
> I appreciate that you acknowledge the inconvenience to others by using the word chutzpah. Your method slows down, and complicates, the boarding process for everyone else on the plane.
I disagree it is them at the root cause of this inconvenience.
If I were implementing a seating algorithm, my instinct would be to sit members of the same booking together. Presumably members of the same booking are family or friends.
However the actual algorithm the airlines chose to use do not do this. This must be a conscious decision. And the reason for that is they want you to pay extra to sit together.
They have decided to make the deliberate choice to not seat families together.
They have decided that their profits are more important than your annoyance.
So I mostly agree with you if assigned seating was free. The problem I've had twice is where someone had asked me to trade a paid seat for a worse one to sit with a spouse. Obviously different than a child, but it speaks to something else I hate about flying. The airline makes their problems your problems. For example: flight delayed but we can rebook you for a flight that would have been cheaper if you had just booked that one, and you have no recourse.
Imagine going to a restaurant and they say they are out of steak but here is a burger, but we won't give you the difference because that's what you originally ordered.
What the rule should be is airlines can't charge for seats in the back half of their airplane.
I don't disagree with any of this, nor did I, to clarify, imply that OP is the root cause.
Personally I pay for seat assignments but I’m sympathetic. He didn’t create this problem. The airline knows the birthdate of every passenger before they show you the option to pay for seats. They are deliberately seating young kids alone. They didn’t do this before, but they made an intentional business decision to do this to extract more cash.
It is interesting you make it sound like it is that person's fault the airline did not seat their family together.
It sounds almost like you think a multi-billion dollar company is more important that regular old families.
I know I'm old now because I shake my head at the world we have created with sadness and disgust.
I never said that it's OP's fault that airlines don't seat families together, I just highlighted the impact of the decision OP made in that moment. As I've said elsewhere in this thread, I (as a parent of kids) am completely onboard with this proposed rule and have wanted it for a long time.
> I just highlighted the impact of the decision OP made in that moment
The decision they made was putting the onus on a multi-billion dollar corporation to respect and be kind to families!
The fact they hadn't already done-so is entirely on them, not OP.
If you think there is another decision to be made, you are sorely mistaken.
I don't think there's another decision to be made - I'm fine with them making the decision, especially because they're self-aware (hence my saying that I appreciate them admitting that fact).
- OP made the decision to put the onus on a multi-billion dollar corporation to resolve the issue and respect families - good for OP, hell yes, I agree!
- OP also made the decision to inconvenience everyone boarding behind them
Both of these things can absolutely be true at the same time.
Edit: Going further, this is actually a really great way of highlighting how bullshit this policy is. A family, like OP, will make what they view as the best path forward for themselves in this situation, at the expense of inconveniencing everyone behind them. If the root cause is the airline's policy, then this is a great example of how this policy can inconvenience everyone on a plane.
> - OP also made the decision to inconvenience everyone boarding behind them
No, the airline did that when they didn't seat the family together.
If a bank has so many convoluted steps it takes me 10 minutes to withdraw cash from an ATM, am I at fault for holding up everyone else waiting to use the ATM? Should I simply not use the ATM at all in fear of delaying others?
The billion dollar corporation did a stupid thing, it is THEIR fault boarding was not as fast as it otherwise could have been, NOT the paying customer's.
>No, the airline did that when they didn't seat the family together.
The airline gave them the option of sitting together, and OP chose the option that will inconvenience others.
>If a bank has so many convoluted steps it takes me 10 minutes to withdraw cash from an ATM, am I at fault for holding up everyone else waiting to use the ATM?
No, but you are at fault if they give you the option for instant withdrawal for $0.25.
>The billion dollar corporation did a stupid thing, it is THEIR fault boarding was not as fast as it otherwise could have been, NOT the paying customer's.
Did you happen to miss my edit? The one where I highlight that the root is the policy, and the fallout from OP's choice between the two options given to them is a great example of why it's bullshit?
> No, but you are at fault if they give you the option for instant withdrawal for $0.25.
You can stick that.
What if the "instant" option was $25? What if it was $250?
Your logic falls down completely.
I am genuinely horrified you think it's OK for a multi-billion dollar corporation to charge customers - who are already paying for a service - MORE money for a faster service when it used to be included as part of the original payment for services, and we know very well they could if they wanted to, but they're just gouging customers for every increasingly more money
>You can stick that.
That's super kind of you, thanks for the level-headed discussion.
>What if the "instant" option was $25? What if it was $250?
>Your logic falls down completely.
Sort of, I suppose. Again, not saying the policy is OK, just saying that there are different kinds of fallout based on the decisions we make within a fucked up system. You're taking my comment a lot further than you need to be.
>I am genuinely horrified you think it's OK for a multi-billion dollar corporation to charge customers - who are already paying for a service - MORE money for a faster service when it used to be included as part of the original payment for services, and we know very well they could if they wanted to, but they're just gouging customers for every increasingly more money
Please take a deep breath and chill out on the "horrified" and "stick that" rhetoric, and then begin to patiently read through all of my comments on this thread. I have VERY SPECIFICALLY said in this thread that I don't like this policy, either. I have VERY SPECIFICALLY said in this thread that, as a parent, I'm glad that this rule is being proposed. Perhaps they're in response to other people, but they're all in this chain.
You're very right to be passionate about this, but I have a feeling that your emotions are preventing you from having a level-headed discussion at this point. I say this because I've repeatedly told you I don't like this policy, and that the fallout from OP's actions highlights why the policy is bullshit, but you're still telling me that you're horrified that I think this policy is OK. That's not at all what I'm saying, and it seems that others in this chain have understood that fairly well.
> Sort of, I suppose
If you want to have a good discussion, this, right here, IMO is the reason we have to make decisions "within a fucked up system" (as you put it).
You are letting these companies push you around. You accepted the $0.25 "instant" fee at the ATM, and in fact said I would be an a-hole if I didn't and held other people up because of it. At that point you are a very big part of the problem, because you are not just allowing them to get away with it, you're actively encouraging it, and saying anyone who doesn't is actually the problem.
Stand up for yourself. Stand up for others. Don't take the BS. Don't blame regular folks for what the big corporations are doing, make noise about the corporation is very obviously at fault here and they are the problem making our society worse.
> I've repeatedly told you I don't like this policy
But you clearly don't feel that way strongly, otherwise you wouldn't be saying I'm the bad guy for not paying the extra $0.25 (or $25) "instant" fee at the ATM and holding others up.
>You are letting these companies push you around.
Not really. I pick my battles - there are places I fight back, and other places where I may opt not to pick a fight for the sake of convenience. But just because I'm willing to pay a fee within a system that currently exists doesn't mean that I haven't actively worked to elect politicians who have stated that they want to make these changes. There are plenty of other exorbitant fees that airlines charge that I have refused to pay and have worked around on my own, but sometimes I may bite the bullet for the sake of my own convenience while the politicians I supported work to put these proposed rules in place. And wouldn't you know it, this thread is literally about them doing that. Huh...
>You accepted the $0.25 "instant" fee at the ATM, and in fact said I would be an a-hole if I didn't and held other people up because of it.
My exact statement was, "No, but you are at fault if they give you the option for instant withdrawal for $0.25.". At no point have I called you an asshole.
>... and saying anyone who doesn't is actually the problem. ... Don't blame regular folks...
I truly do not understand how I can make what I have repeated about who's truly "at fault" here any clearer than I already have. Good gracious.
>But you clearly don't feel that way strongly, otherwise you wouldn't be saying I'm the bad guy...
Again, with the emotionally-charged rhetoric. Just because one is "at fault" doesn't make one "a bad guy" or an "a-hole". I've never insinuated that you would be a bad person for choosing that option, just like I've never said that OP is a bad person - again, I applauded them for being aware of the impact their decision causes while still being willing to take what they chose as the best path forward for them and their family. Causing people to wait ten minutes because you opted not to pay a fee doesn't make you a bad person - I'm not going to cast judgement because I don't know if the person at the ATM simply doesn't want to pay it, or can't afford it, or what. But that doesn't mean that they're not at fault for making people wait - and that's OK.
Life's fairly nuanced, bud, and sometimes we have to make crappy decisions within a shitty system that we're currently working to fight. That's capitalism for ya, and it sucks. Again, I truly think that you need to go outside and get some fresh air. I'm an outdoorsman myself, and I've stumbled upon your content from time to time - maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to put HN down, hop in your Jeep and go for a drive?
You’re right. Thanks & sorry. I just took a really long walk and feel better.
I did the same, I noticed myself getting more frustrated over an internet debate than I should be haha. Though, it's incredibly more humid here than it usually is, and now I feel gross and kinda regret it LOL.
Much love, bud. Hope you and yours enjoy the rest of your day. :)
Cheers, you too. Shockingly humid here too....
Seat booking is hard. If a parent chooses the option of unattended seating, that’s just the reality of limited resources.
The OP is acting like parents and kids are the only people who will ever want to sit together.
What happens when OP’s kid is sitting next to another family? You gonna pull off your swap then?
Airlines suck don’t get me wrong. This is someone blaming an airline for bad parenting and/or poor planning ahead.
Seat booking isn't hard. It's a solved problem, for decades.
Two seats are free on a plane, but each is in a row of three, and each of those rows already has a couple. Book 2 seats side by side.
There you go, algorithm geniuses
Then why do airlines keep fiddling with it?
To get more money from passengers.
Oh… hackernews…
It's that airlines are causing this issue though. They have websites to choose seats, and could very easily do this for free. Flight attendants already verify other aspects of seating, so does preboarding, so the entire workflow is done.
Instead the airline makes people pay, or they'll break up a family. That includes the lack of a guardian if there are issues.
100% the airlines' purposeful fault, attempting to extort cash or everyone is in a bad situation. Even the poor flight attendants, their own employees.
As a single dude, I applaud this law, and buddy's attempts to not pay extortion.
For the third or forth time in this thread, I've never argued against the fact that the root cause of this all is the airlines being extortionate. I was clearly (at least I figured it was, my bad I suppose) discussing a reaction to a reaction to a root cause.
Fair enough.
I actually find the idea of the chaos that would unfold after putting my toddler in one seat and then going somewhere else to sit quite amusing. Haven’t had the chance yet, but I’m not paying a high fee for a seat on a short flight.
Edit: just adding to that, pretty sure flight attendants or other passengers would gladly resolve the issue that the airlines created.. it’s just not practical with small children
That is the real power move
If I pay for an aisle seat, I’m not going to give it up for some unprepared parents who skipped going on an airline where you can pick your seats. That’s not my problem. I tend to travel alone and when I don’t I get an assigned seat for my partner/friends. I will of course be courteous to anyone asking but if they keep it up I’ll ask the attendants to please help me, I’m being bullied.
Have fun sitting next to my unattended 5yo for eight hours.
Also going to say if anyone asks me to change seats for this (and wouldn’t involve me separating too much from my own co-travellers, and even then, we’re adults that can deal with a few hours apart on a trip together), I’ll 100% do it.
Absolutely nothing wrong with asking. Worst that should ever happen to anyone making a reasonable ask is a “no”. I’ll enjoy being a part of the snub against the airlines and their junk fees.
I fly often enough that I don’t really care for my aisle/window/whatever seat if I have one. They’re all pretty much the same.
as a parent it would be fun to have my kid sit in the middle seat between two random people and let them deal with him on the flight while I relax far away
This is basically the main plot device for the movie Home Alone.
I fly first class - the kids fly economy.
It's one thing for a government to give free incentives, but the government shouldn't be forcing company pricing unless it's to encourage a free market. So basically everyone's seat price will go up now because they have to make others free.
I mean, this makes a lot of sense, a parent needs to be sitting near a child if you don't want complaints from all the people in the airplane (obviously this is based on age)
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Shy of paying living wages for jobs with decent work life balance and building sufficient housing, of course.
Over and over this is repeated, but wages are not the reason for decline in birth rates IMO.
Talk to your friends, they might verbally say 'money', but then you see them go on trips and buy food at restaurants. Its much easier socially to say 'money', than 'I don't like/want kids'.
The only reason I have a ton of kids, is because I am planning on setting them up for political purposes as I play Dynasty. Its selfish, and I hope to make lots of money and power from them.
No one else has this mentality. The better question is: "Why does someone want kids?"
Given most people are hedonists(assumed). Would a hedonist want kids? Maybe. They are cute which is dopamine inducing. But less fancy food and lots of crying pains.
> Talk to your friends, they might verbally say 'money', but then you see them go on trips and buy food at restaurants. Its much easier socially to say 'money', than 'I don't like/want kids'.
Going on trips and eating out are luxuries some can afford because they don't have children...
Is this a novelty account? The comment + username makes it feel like it, but I'm not used to seeing this type of poster on HN.
There was a time, not that long ago, when going on trips and eating at restaurants was not mutually exclusive with having kids.
Depends on the restaurant. I'm apparently the only white family that will bring my kids to an Indian restaurant in this city. Once in a while I'll see kids with their India family, but all the other customers are adults who seem to think Indian restaurants are not for kids. (the staff seems to agree that they are serving family friendly food - it is what they ate growing up)
That sounds less like a money issue and more a cultural thing.
exactly, many places are not welcoming of kids.
There was a time, not that long ago, where going on trips and eating at restaurants were not affordable for 90% of people, but they still had kids.
This is clearly a multifaceted topic.
No, these are two different topics. Travel and food became less expensive because technology advances. This is what we'd expect to happen and has nothing to do with kids.
We got to the point where travel, food, and child rearing were all readily affordable things. Now it is no longer the case.
Our technological ability to travel or produce food has not diminished, indeed these things are cheaper than ever. The cost of child rearing, relative to people's earnings, has gone up.
I think that's an interesting thought, but would frame it a little bit differently. I'm not sure the true cost of child rearing has increased in the bare minimum requirements are still quite cheap. Instead, I think there's been an escalation of expectation or perceived minimum around both child rearing and material life.
It would be fascinating to read or perform a study looking at what it would cost to obtain the median material conditions of life from say 1924.
I would expect it would be quite cheap. I imagine a tiny house smaller than modern apartments located in a rural area. There would be no healthcare, cell phone, Electronics, or car.
If these were the expectations, I think it is still very possible to support the family and children on a single income.
Edit: I found this awesome USDA guide from 1934 for how to set up a substance farm on 1 acre.
https://www.nal.usda.gov/exhibits/ipd/small/exhibits/show/su....
Im partial to layout 1, for land north of the Mason-Dixon line, where average quality farmland is about 11k/acre: https://www.nal.usda.gov/exhibits/ipd/small/files/original/5...
Sure, it probably wouldn't be too expensive to achieve a typical 1924 quality of life, it would be even cheaper to achieve an 1824 quality of life, but it should be deeply alarming that a typical 1994 quality of life is out of reach.
Again, you used to be able to have healthcare, and a cellphone, and electronics, and a car, and all these other things (all of which were much more expensive to produce at the time) while simultaneously comfortably raising a family. A nice home in a good area was once a staple of the middle class, not a luxury for the elites.
We didn't sacrifice having children to improve our quality of life elsewhere, technological development has allowed us to keep our material possessions as we get poorer and poorer, while the costs of life that can't be reduced through technology - real estate, education, child care, etc - skyrocket.
What do you think stops us from going back to 1994 material conditions and costs?
Population is a big one that is a pretty big non-starter. Urbanization would be difficult. Housing and zoning codes might be possible. Childcare regulations is possible but unpopular. Lowering taxes to 1994 levels is possible, but unpopular.
I think you hit the nail on the head with hedonism as a root cause, particularly happiness utilitarianism in my mind.
There are lots of sentimental reasons a romantic might have kids even if it makes them less happy. In our current culture, sentimental and romantic are synonymous with stupid or foolish.
Birth rates fall when societies get richer, not when they get poorer. Additionally, rates are falling all the same in the states with the most generous welfare policies.
Birth rates fall when infant mortality falls, which tends to coincide with societies getting richer.
At the same time, countries tend to get richer when their birth rates fall, as people are spending their time working to produce economic value instead of having kids.
Compare say France, with a fertility rate of 1.82 and a GDP per capita of $43k to South Korea with a fertility rate of 0.88 and a GDP per capita of $42k.
Do not mistake correlation with causation. And do not mistake society getting richer with the individuals in a society having more access to the time and space necessary for raising a family.
Well, there is this quote, "Dr Peng said throwing money at people was not enough to convince them to have children." https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-04/asia-spending-million... It is more of a culture thing.
At least in the US, I think children are perceived as a nuisance right now, and adding special rules for them for airlines doesn't really change that. If anything it makes it worse. Some campaign like "don't get a dog, get a child" might have more appeal. E.g. one could point out how you can't bring a dog on a plane except in a carrier but a child gets their own seat.
The government needs to reform its support systems if it wants more children.
The correlation between government support systems as a thing which exists, and number of children per couple, is decidedly negative.
I don't think that's causal in any way, but that lack of causality applies to your statement as well.
Ah yeah, I didn't mention the foster care system. If you think adopting a pet is hard, try adopting a child...
Adopting a child is generally much harder than having your own. "Normal" kids rarely end up in foster or adoption situations. You see abused kids - you need a degree in psychology to help them recover from their background, or you see kids defects (genetic, mental, or otherwise) who need special care that is much harder than normal to give - while this could happen to you by random change, odds are it won't. Once in a while a "normal" kid has their family die (not just parents, extended family as well) and end up in the system, but this is rare. I'm glad for those parents who do take on foster kids, but it is not easy.
Adopting overseas is not a good answer - there is a lot of fraud (most countries will not even allow it anymore - it is too easy to kidnap a baby and by the time the rightful parents can get to authorities the baby is in a different country and impossible to trace down). There is still some opportunity, but make sure you are not unwittingly kidnapping a child.
That's certainly one of the issues - if having children was separate from raising them, like how pet breeders are generally not pet owners, children would be more of a fungible commodity and everything would be a lot simpler. I'm not saying it should be like that, just that economically it's one of the reasons the child business is not an efficient free market.
Do we? Is the global population about to collapse? Isn't an increase of global population going to cause more issues?
Define collapse. The world population is on track to start declining starting in the next few decades. However with 8-9 billion humans how large a loss would you require before you call it a collapse is a debatable question.
Increase in global population will continue for a few decades, but there are more old people than young people and it seems unlikely that we will get to a phase where births are high enough to counteract coming the death by old age in the near future.
I believe this is a good thing even if it will cause many issues. Humanity will have to live on earth for a long time and infinite growth is not sustainable. So at some point the population has to fluctuate. We will have to accept this reality.
May I ask why we should do that?
If the status quo continues, the population pyramid inverts and you get too many pensioners trying to cash in retirement investments whose value is backed up by too few people still in work.
How much of a problem this is depends how close your economy is to replacement level, the closer the better. And I say "economy" rather than "country" because if (for the sake of argument) 100% of your investments and suppliers* are in the Bay Area then that's what you need to care about even if (like me) you're not American.
* I'm still oversimplifying, but take the gist
Next let's encourage them to move those children around by burning kerosene in the atmosphere! WCGW?
Sure. Let’s start with universal free childcare and healthcare.
Tax paid-Childcare is the biggest win win win.
Your laborers are working which is good for GDP. They are taxed. The laborers are earning experience which produces some sort of multiplier of efficiency.
For the right: More workers are good for economies
For the left: More workers leaving the home mean higher social/political awareness and education. More children getting preschool/pre-k education.
For the children: I cannot tell you how many times I've heard things like, "My kid doesnt talk" or some other delay, only to find out they have been at home spending all day with a parent for years. I've further seen this as my 3rd child pretends to be the same age as my 2nd child, speech and physical abilities.
The worst thing is having a person stay at home for 5 years, watching a single child.
While I'm certainly pro free childcare, it is worth noting that even countries with both free child care and generous paternity leave, like Sweden, still have very low birth rates. So while these things are probably good in themselves, they are no guarantee that they'll significantly improve brith rates.
I agree that in general, there can be economic benefits to specialization of labor.
However, I also think there is deep hesitancy and real risks when domestic work to a government entitlement.
I would also think that if the left makes inducing "higher social/political awareness" a primary goal, the proposal would be dead on arrival.
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It's a Ponzi scheme, all systems need it.
The overwhelming majority of US legislators have no concept of what it means to run a business that serves customers what they want. The market has already corrected this situation. Some carriers offer the service free of charge, some don’t. Parents are completely able to see the policy associated with a specific ticket before they purchase.
> Parents are completely able to see the policy associated with a specific ticket before they purchase.
It's a process of discovery rather than being something that you know up front. You generally have to get pretty deep into the process of purchasing a ticket before you learn how much it will cost to pre-book your seats. If you don't like it, you have to start the process anew with another airline.
And this is deliberate by the airlines. They want you to invest some time before they reveal the true, all-inclusive price, so you're less likely to look elsewhere.
"Junk Fees" are a direct result of consumers demanding lower base fares.
Inflation-adjusted, it has _never_ been cheaper to just get on a plane and fly across the country.
Once you start legislating away the ability for consumers to pick and choose what they want to pay for, some of that cost will just be rolled back into the base fare, making all customers pay more.
As usual, good intentions lead to bad policy.
Junk fees obscuring true pricing reduce the efficiency of a market. Efficient markets require transparent pricing and surprise fees disclosed later in booking are the opposite of this.
So, yes— please make pricing simple enough that you can disclose everything up front, even if that means many “extras” are rolled into the base fare.
... or some standardised why to compare the total cost across carriers on a meta search engine (kinda what Google Flights allows you to do with luggage).
Yes. But even so, fees like this can also be a backdoor way to do what would otherwise unlawful conduct (discriminating against children or other groups).
I fail to see how this is a bad thing at all
For everybody who doesn't travel with kids, who will now see a small increase in base fare, this is a financial negative.
But, I'm with you - "humanizing" airline travel a bit is probably a net good. These days, basically nobody enjoys flying for myriad reasons (almost all of which are vaguely caused by a "race to the bottom")
The cost of this is negligible if it exists at all.
Charging for access to the already-existing seat selection feature when booking is a classic tactic of price discrimination to squeeze more money from people who can afford it.
So this could impact profits, but not costs.
Yes, we agree.
Clearly solution here is to increase price of tickets for underage children. Which is the fairest way for everyone.
Considering the main cost is fuel, why not weight passengers at take-off and charge a supplement accordingly ?
Cost-wise, kids should be 50% off.
Should build some rows with mini seats and tiny legroom for the kids.
Make it more like a resort where you hand off the kids to the on-site daycare and enjoy a carefree day. Need a staffer, but the extra seating capacity should cover it.
We have on-board showers, individual cabins, sit down bars, but where’s the onsite daycare?
And adults that want to save money can squeeze into the tiny seats. Once that catches on we can have a new junk fee for an oversized tiny seat, it can be even the new base fare even. /s
...well, except this is good policy.
If you reflect on what value procreation may have to society, and the role parenting plays in realizing that value, and how parents accomplish this, you may come to realize that its good when parents are responsible for their young children.
That means they need to be near in fraught situations, like air travel.
Meanwhile, I think we can conclude the cost of this rule is low. E.g., several competitive airlines are already doing this. And rationally, we can suppose the proportion of bookings affected by this is low, so this is mainly a matter of updating the booking software.
High-value, low cost.. that's good policy.
They made almost a trillion dollars as an industry last year, with 30 billion right off the top in pure profit, and mind you that's a scant few years after the lot of the American one's at least were financially insolvent and crying to Congress for aid when COVID grounded their fleets for WEEK.
I don't think the airlines have a problem justifying their ticket prices, I think they have a greedy bastard executive class problem that's draining them of all their money.
Do you realize that is a razor thin margin of 3%? No wonder airlines are always at risk of bankruptcy
Maybe they should stop doing so many stock buybacks then.
Those come out of the profits
>I think they have a greedy bastard executive class problem //
I mean, that's the entire point of Western Capitalism, to further enrich the wealthy.
The wealthy own the political classes, effectively. Unless you can make money off it then it's not happening.
This seems like a dumb rule that's just going to increase airfares for everyone else as companies try to comply with this. Airlines are already required by law to give a refund within 24 hours. If you booked a ticket that doesn't have a signed seating that's the fair class you chose and you get what you get. If you book a ticket with a signed seating and you don't see the seats that you want you have 24 hours to cancel. Otherwise just deal with it.
> If you booked a ticket that doesn't have a signed seating that's the fair class you chose and you get what you get.
n.b. "a signed" -> assigned, "fair" -> fare
What you're in effect saying is that young children & their parents traveling with them should be ineligible for the cheapest fare classes, i.e. you're advocating for what is effectively an extra tax on them. Is that the intention?
Well, I think they're arguing that if you want to be guaranteed to sit next to your child, you need to pay whatever fee is required to select your own seat. That seems normal and mostly, even though I understand why this new policy exists as well. There's plenty of things parents have to pay for like this.
> That seems normal
It didn't use to be normal.
What didn't?
I believe they're referring to having to pay more to sit next to your children.
Well, the cheapest fair class doesn't include a features they want, which has a cost to the airline. That seems reasonable. If they are eligible and get to pick seats, then it's a tax on everyone else to support that.
Why should a 300lb neck beard fly cheaper than a 80lb kid if he requires much more fuel to burn? Lets weight passengers and luggage at the gate…
Most of the cost of a flight is fixed. If the plane is empty (other than the minimum airline staff) or full to max weight (not mass!) makes very little difference in the amount of fuel burned.
I'm sorry I use voice to text and sometimes it spells the words wrong. Since you clearly understood what I meant apparently you like to shame people with disabilities that need to use accommodating features.
Yes people who require additional features should pay for additional features. Just because it's an airline doesn't mean you get to aggregate expenses to other customers for the features you want. Would you be okay if overweight people automatically got first class for the same price point as the cheapest fare? Your lifestyle and that includes having children is not the burden of other people to finance.
This rule increases the efficiency of the market. There are two types of people who pay extra for assigned seating:
1) people who need to sit together because they are flying with someone who cannot sit alone. If the fee makes the flight too expensive, they'd rather not fly or will choose a different airline without the fee.
2) people who will pay money to avoid a bit of inconvenience. If the fee makes the flight too expensive, they'll just not pay the fee but will still pay the base fare.
Making the people in #1 pay the fee loses airlines money. Making the people in #2 pay the fee is highly lucrative.
This rule will allow the airlines to make more money because they can now easily target #2 without targetting the people in category #1. Before the law this was more difficult -- how do you properly distinguish between people who have to sit together and people who want to sit together?
Your argument only works in the case where airlines are not flying at or near capacity. If a plane is 60% full you have a case for number one. I submit you have not flown very often lately because I've never seen a plane 60% full in a long long time.
Paying a convenience fee for a convenience is a standard thing to do. Asking other people to pay for your convenience is always a wrong thing to do.
>...I submit you have not flown very often lately because I've never seen a plane 60% full in a long long time.
The load factor will likely vary by location and time of day, but overall from April of 2023 to April of 2024, the load factor was about 83%. This is very close to the historical load factor for US airlines since 2010 or so (except for the COVID years). The only time the overall load factor was around 60% was in 2020.
https://www.transtats.bts.gov/TRAFFIC/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/691451/us-airline-passen...
I've flown in lots of planes that were at 90% capacity. The difference in profit between 90% capacity and 92% capacity is massive because airlines charge a lot more for the last few seats on the plane than they do the first 50% of the seats.
It's not a convenience for parents, it's a requirement.
And it's a different convenience. Many people are paying extra to sit near the front of the plane. Many parents would rather sit near the back near the bathroom.
> people who require additional features should pay for additional features.
This is a strange thing to say immediately after chiding someone for not considering the disabled.
Should wheelchair ramps on public buildings be funded via a special tax that only wheelchair users have to pay?
Disabled people who required specific accommodations for their disability in a specific sense yes need to pay extra. You will see this when they buy a vehicle that requires things like hand controls or a wheelchair lift or other things like that. Those features cost more and there is no expectation that every other car purchaser will chip in to pay for that.
When talking about accessibility to public buildings and making certain basic accessibility features part of the design and construction is different. Trying to conflate the two confuses the argument here. Requiring that your child automatically get a seat next to you for no additional charge in no way relates to ensuring that a wheelchair can make it to the plane.
The ADA is the law (In the US, other countries have their own version which is broadly similar), but you are allowed to not provide a ramp or other disability assistance in cases where it is not reasonable (the ADA defines this in detail). If you look at the rules, most of them do not add very much to the cost of a building - making a hall a little wider so there is room for a wheelchair doesn't cost much. Where it would cost a lot the ADA will generally let you out of doing it.
The additional cost to the airline to pre-book seats is de minimis. Their ticketing and websites already support it. The purpose of charging to pre-book seats is to obscure the all-inclusive price of the ticket and to increase overall revenue.
As a result of this is that it is more difficult for consumers to compare ticket prices between airlines, and consumers are more likely to pay more than planned for airline tickets due to surprise charges.
Except that obese people are a massive cost to society, whilst children are the only means for continuation of human life, and thus of society, and so are supremely vital to it.
There's no additional cost in seating children, or those incapable of self-supervision, with their parent/carer. The low cost airlines force the separation in order to make an inconvenience that they hope to charge for. Like if they wiped your hands with grease as you got in the aeroplane and then charged for hand wipes.
There is an additional cost for that seating especially when the airline has already sold seats and there's no two seats placed together. Most of this is a convenience fee if you know where you want to sit it's worth it to you to pay a little bit extra. So for you to say there's no additional cost is not true especially when the requirement is you must require that the person can cancel or rebook to other flights if those two specific seats you want aren't available. There is definitely a cost to the implementation of this plan.
It is literally asking other customers to pay for one person's convenience.
When a restaurant gives you a plate with your food, the plate is an additional cost for the restaurant. Would you consider a plate to be "an additional feature?" Hey, some people might prefer to get $1 off their bill and eat without a plate. Why not charge everyone else a $1 Plate Fee? As a non-plate eater, I resent having to pay that $1 and get a plate I don't need.
> I'm sorry I use voice to text and sometimes it spells the words wrong. Since you clearly understood what I meant apparently you like to shame people with disabilities that need to use accommodating features.
I had no intention of shaming, the personal attack is really unwarranted. And I obviously had no idea what the reason was. I just stumbled on the text when reading it so I was hoping you could perhaps fix them.
"Just deal with it" is usually not a good option for children. Some children are very independent, but in 2024 I think most are not.
Well the solution in that case is to .. book adjoining seats. If you're the last person to book a flight and there's no adjoining seats, then choose a different flight. The flight couldn't have been that important to you if you're one of the last people reserving, you should be able to just book a different flight where you can reserve the appropriate seats.
The flight couldn't have been that important to you if you're one of the last people reserving
If I'm booking a last minute flight for my whole family and don't have any flexibility in when I leave, it is almost certainly because it is Very Important that we're on that flight.
This. Families don't generally book tickets last minute unless it's a family emergency. At least, that's been my experience - vacations that involve long distance travel are planned months in advance, not days.
Idk if you've flown recently, but you don't get to pick seats anymore without paying a fairly substantial fee.
The article quotes $200 for a family of four.
$25/person/leg sounds about right, even more if you need layovers
In general, the closer to flight time that you book, the more expensive it is. And everybody knows that, so the closer to flight time they book, the more important it is to them.
My kids are more independent than they were 20 years ago.
It’s dumb because costs will be incurred by more than those that directly benefit from it? I’ve got bad news for you about how basically every business under the sun works.