However, for years (ever since I started flying with my own kids) I’ve supported the idea of a family cabin. It would relieve both the people who don’t want to fly near children and also the parents of children who have to deal with ill-socialized adult passengers who object, for instance, to your reading a book quietly to your child. The airlines could possibly offer additional services (remember service?) in the family cabin — at least crayons and coloring books. They might even be able to use smaller seats for children under ten.

I’d rather fly with other families, I think the kids would like it more, and so would the non-family passengers. I imagine it would be a selling point for the airlines as well.

I love it when I am in A or B and hate it when I am in C.

Imagine that, someone has to end up in a middle seat.

Group 1’s with assigned seats on American cause boarding anarchy, some assigned at the back and some assigned in the middle, the boarding process takes foooorrrreeevvvveeerrrr.

I agree lets board from the back and the front and get the plane on its way that much quicker…

There’s no reason why Southwest can’t be like the rest of the airlines and have reserved seating when you BUY a ticket. Then there is no confusion and no “would you be willing to change your prime seat you’ve selected to the crappy middle seat that’s left.”

How about this option? Since Southwest flies multiple flights between destinations, make one of these flights “kid-less” (nobody under 16). Eliminate the deepest discount or 2 deepest discounts on this flight. Let the market take determine how to handle the situation.

A. You can still be overbooked.

B. When flights are changed. For example, I suffered from Northwest’s troubles in June, and since I got moved to another flight my family was split up. Luckily some creative maneuvering at the NW ticket counter and some trading on the plane led to everything being sorted out, but if I was on SW my family would just snag line A. (Too Bad SWA doesn’t go to Canada!)