President Biden recently announced he plans to crack down on “junk fees” for travel, including airlines charging to allow families to sit together. While no legislation has yet been passed, United Airlines is taking a proactive approach with its new family seating policy. This is a positive move with even better looks.
How United Airlines puts families together
United Airlines has a new family seating policy that makes it easier than ever for children under 12 to sit next to an adult in their group for free. This is offered even for basic economy tickets, which usually do not offer free seat reservation.
This new policy is made possible through a series of investments in a new seat map feature that dynamically finds available adjacent seats at the time of booking:
- The system will first check all available economy seats to try to allocate seats together
- If unavailable, Preferred Seats will be released (these are not Economy Plus seats with extra legroom, just Standard Economy seats, which are more desirable).
Customers will see these options immediately, and the full policy change will go into effect in early March. Note that this new feature does not apply to First Class, Polaris, or Economy Plus, as there are no realistic ways to free up seats.
In the event that adjacent seats are unavailable prior to departure (e.g., due to a last-minute booking, a full flight, or an unscheduled aircraft change), United’s new policy allows customers to transfer at no cost to a flight to the same Destination with availability of adjacent seats in the same cabin. Customers will not be charged if there is a fare difference between the original flight and the new flight.
Here’s how Linda Jojo, United’s Chief Customer Officer, describes this development:
“At a time when more families are working in a hybrid environment, they’re traveling more — and they’re flying United. We are focused on providing our younger passengers and their parents with a great experience, and we know that often starts with the right seat. We look forward to introducing more family-friendly features this year.”
United has new guidelines for putting families together
This is played very well by United Airlines
This United initiative is impressive on several levels.
First of all, United have invested an incredible amount of money in technology in recent years and this reflects that quite clearly. The fact that United can roll something out so quickly suggests the technology has been around for some time as I imagine other airlines would struggle to implement this so quickly.
Secondly, this is a really customer-friendly move with great visuals. The reality is that when families can’t sit together, the experience for a family can quickly be spoiled, and it can cause a bit of chaos at the gate or on board as people try to find new seats to accommodate families. The visuals are also great when it comes to United voluntarily complying with new government regulations before they’re even implemented.
I think these moves are part of an overall shift in which United has evolved from being the last of the “big three” in almost every way to a leading airline in many areas. Don’t get me wrong, United is far from perfect — the airline still has a service culture issue (at least compared to Delta), United’s Wi-Fi offering is weak, and Polaris’ catering has gotten downright terrible.
But overall I think United is moving in the right direction and Scott Kirby is doing a good job of slowly changing the airline for the better.
United are going in the right direction
bottom line
President Biden has promised he will crack down on fees for families on planes together, and United is proactively delivering on it before legislation is even passed.
United has a new feature that automatically matches standard economy seats together when traveling with children under 12 years old. Additionally, this opens up preferred seating when regular economy seats aren’t available, and even allows families to transfer to other flights that have adjacent seats available.
That’s played really well by United. The execution and speed of implementation is a pleasant surprise here.
What do you think of United’s new family seating policy?