I’ve definitely selected adjacent seats in the past, then ended up separated the day of the flight. Even if it’s a couple, it’s probably the airline’s fault.

I solved the problem by preferring southwest, but their new CEO is an a*hole, and instead of raising ticket prices $50 a seat is adding assigned seating, removing legroom, charging for bags, adding ticket change fees, etc, etc.

I avoid southwest because they don’t have assigned seating.

Post time traveled from when they didn't. But now they do.

Interesting, I’m sure they didn’t as recently as 4 weeks ago when I tried shopping for flights.

They’re introducing it in January, but they’re intentionally eliminating all competitive advantages they had vs other airlines between now and then, so it’s going to be a shitshow like delta, united, american, etc. moving forward.

> Even if it’s a couple, it’s probably the airline’s fault.

Citation needed. These things happen, and the airline has some responsibility. But there's plenty of "playing dumb". Cabin crew: "You have a basic economy seat, which means you didn't get seat selection". "I didn't know!" "There's a big blue warning that pops up when you do this with a child passenger, making you acknowledge it..." "..."

No: It’s “I booked 33A and 33B and took a screenshot of the receipt. At checkin, I got 60C and 22D”.

Also, screw airlines that create a financial incentive to make everyone else on the plane miserable.

The last time I flew Alaska, their seating algorithm needlessly separated parties, then jammed everyone into crowded, no legroom aisles, while leaving the comfortable seats empty.

I know it was intentionally splitting parties because I was flying solo and ended up with a center seat. The person next to me was separated from someone that the airline put in a center seat. A naive greedy algorithm would have swapped me and their companion.

They wanted something like $80 for non-malicious seating assignments.

They even made the flight attendant lie and claim was a safety issue, and the plane would fall out of the sky if people switched rows or were evenly distributed throughout the plane. Presumably, management did this so they could charge you with ignoring safety instructions, which is a crime.

Indeed, having children should have tiny nickel and dime costs all throughout your life in a million different ways. It should be the norm that just trying to raise the next generation costs you time, energy, effort, and money just to do normal day to day things, and it should especially be harder for you because you dared to have children.

Wait, why is nobody having kids?

Generally you will be expected to pay for the costs of your life decisions.

The world has more than enough people, so we shouldn't be subsidizing having children. Imbalanced demographics can be solved in other ways.

Some of us are just trying to survive financially or couldn't care less what you think.

Tough luck then buddy. Have fun with the kids.

There has to be some kind of middle ground here, imo. Nobody wants to sit next to kids. Families don't want to be penalized financially anymore than they already are for providing a benefit to society. We don't need to further disincentivize families and further our declining birth rates. At the same time it's wildly unfair to ask people to switch seats when they've paid for them (or even if they haven't).

> Some of us are just trying to survive financially

You made choices, if you were informed about the costs that's kind of on you.

Then quit whining about the toddler next to ya. That's your choice too.

I don't understand the objection to a middle ground approach here, but if that's what we want then screw it.