(Bloomberg) -- Airlines would be prohibited from charging parents a fee to sit next to their young children on US flights under a new proposal by the Transportation Department, which said the rule will lower the cost of flying for families.
Carriers would be required to book parents next to their children 13 years old or younger for free when adjacent seats are available, according to a summary of the proposal released by the department on Thursday. If no seats together are open, airlines must offer parents alternatives, including a full refund or the option to wait for seats to become available before the flight’s departure. Carriers would also face penalties for violating the rules.
“The idea that parents ought to be seated next to their own children on a flight is common sense” and should be a standard practice, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told reporters.
The move is the latest in a push by Buttigieg to expand consumer protections for travelers and crack down on airlines that run afoul of US rules. The department last week said it launched an investigation of Delta Air Lines Inc.’s handling of a crippling technology outage that caused it to cancel thousands of flights and led to a deluge of passenger complaints.
In April, the department finalized a rule requiring carriers to provide automatic cash refunds for canceled or significantly changed flights.
The department has also faced setbacks. A federal appeals court temporarily blocked a separate rule requiring airlines to provide up-front disclosure of certain fees, granting an airline industry request to halt the rule pending a review.
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