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Comment by elmerfud | Hacker News Reader

This seems like a dumb rule that's just going to increase airfares for everyone else as companies try to comply with this. Airlines are already required by law to give a refund within 24 hours. If you booked a ticket that doesn't have a signed seating that's the fair class you chose and you get what you get. If you book a ticket with a signed seating and you don't see the seats that you want you have 24 hours to cancel. Otherwise just deal with it.

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> If you booked a ticket that doesn't have a signed seating that's the fair class you chose and you get what you get.

n.b. "a signed" -> assigned, "fair" -> fare

What you're in effect saying is that young children & their parents traveling with them should be ineligible for the cheapest fare classes, i.e. you're advocating for what is effectively an extra tax on them. Is that the intention?

Well, I think they're arguing that if you want to be guaranteed to sit next to your child, you need to pay whatever fee is required to select your own seat. That seems normal and mostly, even though I understand why this new policy exists as well. There's plenty of things parents have to pay for like this.

> That seems normal

It didn't use to be normal.

What didn't?

I believe they're referring to having to pay more to sit next to your children.

Well, the cheapest fair class doesn't include a features they want, which has a cost to the airline. That seems reasonable. If they are eligible and get to pick seats, then it's a tax on everyone else to support that.

Why should a 300lb neck beard fly cheaper than a 80lb kid if he requires much more fuel to burn? Lets weight passengers and luggage at the gate…

Most of the cost of a flight is fixed. If the plane is empty (other than the minimum airline staff) or full to max weight (not mass!) makes very little difference in the amount of fuel burned.

I'm sorry I use voice to text and sometimes it spells the words wrong. Since you clearly understood what I meant apparently you like to shame people with disabilities that need to use accommodating features.

Yes people who require additional features should pay for additional features. Just because it's an airline doesn't mean you get to aggregate expenses to other customers for the features you want. Would you be okay if overweight people automatically got first class for the same price point as the cheapest fare? Your lifestyle and that includes having children is not the burden of other people to finance.

This rule increases the efficiency of the market. There are two types of people who pay extra for assigned seating:

1) people who need to sit together because they are flying with someone who cannot sit alone. If the fee makes the flight too expensive, they'd rather not fly or will choose a different airline without the fee.

2) people who will pay money to avoid a bit of inconvenience. If the fee makes the flight too expensive, they'll just not pay the fee but will still pay the base fare.

Making the people in #1 pay the fee loses airlines money. Making the people in #2 pay the fee is highly lucrative.

This rule will allow the airlines to make more money because they can now easily target #2 without targetting the people in category #1. Before the law this was more difficult -- how do you properly distinguish between people who have to sit together and people who want to sit together?

Your argument only works in the case where airlines are not flying at or near capacity. If a plane is 60% full you have a case for number one. I submit you have not flown very often lately because I've never seen a plane 60% full in a long long time.

Paying a convenience fee for a convenience is a standard thing to do. Asking other people to pay for your convenience is always a wrong thing to do.

>...I submit you have not flown very often lately because I've never seen a plane 60% full in a long long time.

The load factor will likely vary by location and time of day, but overall from April of 2023 to April of 2024, the load factor was about 83%. This is very close to the historical load factor for US airlines since 2010 or so (except for the COVID years). The only time the overall load factor was around 60% was in 2020.

https://www.transtats.bts.gov/TRAFFIC/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/691451/us-airline-passen...

I've flown in lots of planes that were at 90% capacity. The difference in profit between 90% capacity and 92% capacity is massive because airlines charge a lot more for the last few seats on the plane than they do the first 50% of the seats.

It's not a convenience for parents, it's a requirement.

And it's a different convenience. Many people are paying extra to sit near the front of the plane. Many parents would rather sit near the back near the bathroom.

> people who require additional features should pay for additional features.

This is a strange thing to say immediately after chiding someone for not considering the disabled.

Should wheelchair ramps on public buildings be funded via a special tax that only wheelchair users have to pay?

Disabled people who required specific accommodations for their disability in a specific sense yes need to pay extra. You will see this when they buy a vehicle that requires things like hand controls or a wheelchair lift or other things like that. Those features cost more and there is no expectation that every other car purchaser will chip in to pay for that.

When talking about accessibility to public buildings and making certain basic accessibility features part of the design and construction is different. Trying to conflate the two confuses the argument here. Requiring that your child automatically get a seat next to you for no additional charge in no way relates to ensuring that a wheelchair can make it to the plane.

The ADA is the law (In the US, other countries have their own version which is broadly similar), but you are allowed to not provide a ramp or other disability assistance in cases where it is not reasonable (the ADA defines this in detail). If you look at the rules, most of them do not add very much to the cost of a building - making a hall a little wider so there is room for a wheelchair doesn't cost much. Where it would cost a lot the ADA will generally let you out of doing it.

The additional cost to the airline to pre-book seats is de minimis. Their ticketing and websites already support it. The purpose of charging to pre-book seats is to obscure the all-inclusive price of the ticket and to increase overall revenue.

As a result of this is that it is more difficult for consumers to compare ticket prices between airlines, and consumers are more likely to pay more than planned for airline tickets due to surprise charges.

Except that obese people are a massive cost to society, whilst children are the only means for continuation of human life, and thus of society, and so are supremely vital to it.

There's no additional cost in seating children, or those incapable of self-supervision, with their parent/carer. The low cost airlines force the separation in order to make an inconvenience that they hope to charge for. Like if they wiped your hands with grease as you got in the aeroplane and then charged for hand wipes.

There is an additional cost for that seating especially when the airline has already sold seats and there's no two seats placed together. Most of this is a convenience fee if you know where you want to sit it's worth it to you to pay a little bit extra. So for you to say there's no additional cost is not true especially when the requirement is you must require that the person can cancel or rebook to other flights if those two specific seats you want aren't available. There is definitely a cost to the implementation of this plan.

It is literally asking other customers to pay for one person's convenience.

When a restaurant gives you a plate with your food, the plate is an additional cost for the restaurant. Would you consider a plate to be "an additional feature?" Hey, some people might prefer to get $1 off their bill and eat without a plate. Why not charge everyone else a $1 Plate Fee? As a non-plate eater, I resent having to pay that $1 and get a plate I don't need.

> I'm sorry I use voice to text and sometimes it spells the words wrong. Since you clearly understood what I meant apparently you like to shame people with disabilities that need to use accommodating features.

I had no intention of shaming, the personal attack is really unwarranted. And I obviously had no idea what the reason was. I just stumbled on the text when reading it so I was hoping you could perhaps fix them.

"Just deal with it" is usually not a good option for children. Some children are very independent, but in 2024 I think most are not.

Well the solution in that case is to .. book adjoining seats. If you're the last person to book a flight and there's no adjoining seats, then choose a different flight. The flight couldn't have been that important to you if you're one of the last people reserving, you should be able to just book a different flight where you can reserve the appropriate seats.

The flight couldn't have been that important to you if you're one of the last people reserving

If I'm booking a last minute flight for my whole family and don't have any flexibility in when I leave, it is almost certainly because it is Very Important that we're on that flight.

This. Families don't generally book tickets last minute unless it's a family emergency. At least, that's been my experience - vacations that involve long distance travel are planned months in advance, not days.

Idk if you've flown recently, but you don't get to pick seats anymore without paying a fairly substantial fee.

The article quotes $200 for a family of four.

$25/person/leg sounds about right, even more if you need layovers

In general, the closer to flight time that you book, the more expensive it is. And everybody knows that, so the closer to flight time they book, the more important it is to them.

My kids are more independent than they were 20 years ago.

It’s dumb because costs will be incurred by more than those that directly benefit from it? I’ve got bad news for you about how basically every business under the sun works.

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