DOT Rolls Out Airline Family Seating Dashboard

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has introduced a new family seating dashboard that highlights the U.S. airlines that guarantee family seating at no cost and reveals which carriers currently charge as the department works to ban "family seating junk fees" entirely.

"As recently as a month ago, no U.S. airlines guaranteed fee-free family seating. Now, after weeks of USDOT and the Biden Administration pressing airlines to improve their customer service, American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, and Frontier Airlines have stepped forward to guarantee that parents can sit with their young children without getting nickel and dimed," DOT said in a news release on Monday.

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"While this represents significant progress, USDOT is not stopping there – and has already begun work on a common-sense rulemaking to ban airlines from charging families junk fees to sit together."

The new dashboard features a clear comparison of services airlines have committed to providing travelers and is designed to assist consumers when deciding which airline to book with.

"This new dashboard allows parents to sidestep airlines’ confusing claims on family seating. To receive a green check on the dashboard, an airline must guarantee that parents can sit next to children age 13 and younger for free if adjacent seats are available when they book," stated DOT. "And they must include that guarantee as part of their customer service plan so that it is backstopped by USDOT enforcement if they fail to deliver."

The Biden administration plans to send Congress proposed legislation to enact in the coming weeks.

"Parents traveling with young kids should be able to sit together without an airline forcing them to pay junk fees," U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement. "We have been pressing airlines to guarantee family seating without tacking on extra charges, and now we’re seeing some airlines start to make this common-sense change. All airlines should do this promptly, even as we move forward to develop a rule establishing this as a requirement across the board."

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