FAMILY SEATING FEES UPDATES: DOT TO PROPOSE RULE REQUIRING U.S. AIRLINES TO SEAT FAMILIES TOGETHER FOR FREE; WHITE HOUSE PROPOSES DOT FAMILY SEATING FEES DASHBOARD; UNITED TO STOP CHARGING FAMILY SEATING FEES
March 10, 2023
On February 1, 2023, DOT announced that it plans to propose a new rule to require that airlines seat families together onboard at no additional cost. This comes in direct response to the Biden administration’s announcement calling for the enactment of a “Junk Fee Prevention Act” to eliminate “unfair and costly” fees including aircraft seating fees for parents and young children, and the U.S. Senate’s reintroduction of the “FAIR Fees Act”, which also includes a proposed directive for DOT to ensure that U.S. airlines allow children and family members to be seated together on flights at no additional cost (as further detailed above). DOT previously published a notice in July 2022 urging U.S. airlines to work to ensure that children aged 13 or younger are allowed to sit next to an accompanying adult on flights for no additional charge. It is expected that DOT will develop a proposed rulemaking on family seating fees throughout the course of 2023, though DOT has not stated when it expects to formally issue a proposed rule. The Biden administration also recently proposed that until family seating fees can be prohibited either through a DOT rulemaking or federal law, DOT publish a family seating fee dashboard, similar to DOT’s dashboard that consumers can use to compare airline services and amenities, where consumers could compare airline seating fees.
More recently, United Airlines announced that it will no longer charge families to be able to sit together onboard its flights as of March 2023. Under the new policy, adults and children aged 12 and younger will have the option to book adjacent seats on United flights in both the Basic Economy and Preferred Seat classes (if no options for adjacent seating are available in Basic Economy), and be given an option to switch flights if no adjacent seats are available at the time of booking, all for no additional cost.
If you have any questions, please contact Evelyn Sahr (esahr@eckertseamans.com 202-659-6622) or Drew Derco (dderco@eckertseamans.com 202-659-6665).
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