Fly the Kid Friendly Skies

When we went to Aruba last month, we booked our tix at the last minute. As such, we couldn't select our seats. At every gate, we (along with countless other families) had to beg the airport personnel to be seated with our respective kids. With our family, we didn't all have to be together, but we felt that each kid should preferably have one adult next to him -- especially Son #2 who puked upon landing in FL last February. Not exactly fair game for a random stranger to have to deal with that mess; as his mother, it even grossed me out.

My mom and I were musing that, instead of having passengers pre-select their seats and forcing others to angle for better positioning, airlines could reduce the stress for both passengers and personnel alike by simply applying a seating algorithm based on a) individual preferences coupled with b) companion requirements (e.g., passengers that require assistance and/or parental oversight). By optimizing the variables that are fed into the computer, favorable seating can be assigned at the gate with negligable distress. Isn't that the benefit of simple technology? So why not employ it?

Instead, as my girlfriend Left Coast Mom shared on her Facebook page, British Airways has just instituted a "fly next to your children" fee. I love the opening line here:

"British Airways has broken new exciting new ground in the race to make flying as awful as possible: they have announced a fee (ranging from £10-60 per passenger) for advance seat selection, explaining that this will be the only way that families and other groups travelling together can be assured that they'll be sitting next to each other. I wonder what happens if you don't pay it while flying with a two-year-old in her own seat; do they seat her at the other end of the plane from you and explain to the strangers on either side of her that they're responsible for her well-being for the duration?" (Source: Cory Doctorow for BoingBoing.net)

Our sentiments exactly. Except that it's BA who I was otherwise fond of.

Why, when airlines continue to post losses, are they determined to make flying more difficult for passengers? Blockbuster learned the hard way that imposing fee after fee after fee doesn't increase customer satisfaction -- it just erodes the base of loyal customers so that better products and services, when introduced, face little resistance when attempting to lure customers to switch. Duh.

More on this less-than-favorable change here. There's gotta be a better way.