[smokey_the_bear]

I wouldn't mind paying to sit next to my kids so much if the middle seats were free to select, so I just had to pay for the aisle or window. It seems like blatant greed, and also encourages the behavior of selecting the aisle/window and planning to swap if someone sits in the middle, which complicates boarding and possibly stops other families from sitting together.

Yesterday, I flew with my 11 year old on Southwest. Our first flight was three hours late, we missed our connection and were in the last boarding group on the new flight, which took off at 10:30 pm. He's sat alone before and it's fine, but our bags weren't organized in way to make that easy, and on the late flight they turn off all the lights and it just seems a little strange to sit between strangers in the dark for hours. He was also changing timezones and landed at what felt like 3 am to him.

It just seemed like an unnecessary stressor after a long day of travel for a relatively young person.

[SJetKaran]

+1, even for someone like me who doesn't have kids, this seems like a good policy move