Inflation-adjusted, it has _never_ been cheaper to just get on a plane and fly across the country.
Once you start legislating away the ability for consumers to pick and choose what they want to pay for, some of that cost will just be rolled back into the base fare, making all customers pay more.
As usual, good intentions lead to bad policy.
So, yes— please make pricing simple enough that you can disclose everything up front, even if that means many “extras” are rolled into the base fare.
But, I'm with you - "humanizing" airline travel a bit is probably a net good. These days, basically nobody enjoys flying for myriad reasons (almost all of which are vaguely caused by a "race to the bottom")
Charging for access to the already-existing seat selection feature when booking is a classic tactic of price discrimination to squeeze more money from people who can afford it.
So this could impact profits, but not costs.
Cost-wise, kids should be 50% off.
Make it more like a resort where you hand off the kids to the on-site daycare and enjoy a carefree day. Need a staffer, but the extra seating capacity should cover it.
We have on-board showers, individual cabins, sit down bars, but where’s the onsite daycare?
If you reflect on what value procreation may have to society, and the role parenting plays in realizing that value, and how parents accomplish this, you may come to realize that its good when parents are responsible for their young children.
That means they need to be near in fraught situations, like air travel.
Meanwhile, I think we can conclude the cost of this rule is low. E.g., several competitive airlines are already doing this. And rationally, we can suppose the proportion of bookings affected by this is low, so this is mainly a matter of updating the booking software.
High-value, low cost.. that's good policy.
I don't think the airlines have a problem justifying their ticket prices, I think they have a greedy bastard executive class problem that's draining them of all their money.
I mean, that's the entire point of Western Capitalism, to further enrich the wealthy.
The wealthy own the political classes, effectively. Unless you can make money off it then it's not happening.