Okay.....hypothetically and for argument's sake......the DOT recently required all airlines to block 5% of seats on each flight. This will solve the children sitting alone problem, online seating problems etc.....as the OP suggested.
So......on our flight today from ORD to TPA, we have a 757 that has 200 seats. The airline already blocks a number of seats for disabled passengers and now with the additional 5% blocked, there are roughly 15-20 blocked.
This flight is just after school is out and mom and dad are bringing the 3 kids to Disneyland.....yeaaaaaaaaaaa!!!! Mind you, this is not the only family traveling. Hazard a guess how many families travel this route.
The flight's booked to 210 and the agent is trying to get volunteers. People are coming up wanting their seat. Folks with no intention at all of volunteering are coming up and asking what's the offer, after the agent has already made multiple announcements. People are coming up wanting to sit next to each other because when people were choosing their seats for the last 3 months, they chose seats that were as far away from another person as possible. A 3 and 3 configured aircraft. Couples obviously want to sit together so they reserved 2 seats side by side. A single business guy sees a row of 3 open and then the single seat next to the couple. Which one do you think he's gonna choose? He chooses a single in an open row of 3. This continues until the alotted number of seats, roughly 110, can be assigned. After that it's closed for reserved seats until 24 hours before flight time.
Well, mom and dad missed that window and when they check, there are not 5 seats together. No problem, we'll get there early.
Well, traveling with 3 kids, it takes longer than they thought and they arrive about 90 mintues before flight time. By that time, the internet check-ins and airport check-ins have exhausted all the available seats except the blocked ones.
Here's the question??? When do those seats get used? By whom? As I said, there are multiple families traveling. Should the check-in agent release them and use them? What if the gate agent was planning on using them for "deals" he has at the gate with other families. Plus, what about all the other couples or families without young kids who've given their name to sit together. The agent at the gate could have a list of 5-10 groups of people or more.
To answer my own question, the seats get released at 15 minutes before flight time. So, the agent now has about 12 minutes (the door should be closed 3 minutes early per company regs) to give those that have no seats a seat, to reseat umpteen people to sit together, take verbal abuse (and believe me, it happens) from those that can't get seated together, generate paperwork for the flight attendants (this can only be done after the seats are resolved), get an accurate count of people including kids and infants along with the crew numbers. All this while also working the boarding door to get the people on the plane.
This is just one scenerio. I also wanted to say, that in over 20 years of working with my airline, I NEVER ONCE saw a child not be able to sit with a parent. It was either handled by the gate agent the way I mentioned above, the flight attendant on board or with other passengers when I walked down with the family to move people. This is a problem but it is overblown and easily handled. Not something that needs regulation. There's alot more wrong with airlines that this.
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