Aircraft swaps are an operational reality and often create a musical chairs scenario. But one family of four found out the hard way on United Airlines that remaining seated together required herculean effort. It should have never been this hard.
Aircraft Swaps Leaves 4-Year-Old By Himself On United Airlines Transatlantic Flight
Let’s review the story and I’ll interject my commentary along the way.
We were flying from Geneva to Newark (UA957)—my wife and I, our four-year-old, and our 18-month-old. We checked in the day before and were all seated in the same row. Shortly after, we received a text from United saying the aircraft had changed, and so had our seats. In the new configuration, my wife and our 18-month-old were seated together, I was four rows ahead, and our four-year-old was seated diagonally behind my wife, across the aisle and one row back. Alone.
This is a common occurrence: when there is an aircraft swap, say from a 767-400 to a 767-300, the system auto re-assigns seats and it is not quite advanced enough to ensure that families remain together, even when there are young children traveling.
We immediately reached out to United to fix the situation and asked to be seated as two pairs. After an hour chatting with a rep, they were able to move my seat to the row directly in front of my wife and younger son. But my four-year-old was still alone, and we were told, “It’s out of our control.” They advised us to speak to the gate agent.
This is a common answer and to some extent it is true. Most reservation agents cannot just move people from their pre-assigned seats (and this is a GOOD thing generally, lest we’d see more shenanigans). It is possible, however, for supervisors to move seats. You might consider asking for a service director in order to get this done on the phone…even then, you may need to wait until you are at the airport.
Once the gate opened, I explained the situation to the agent. She took our boarding passes and said she’d call us back when they had a solution. About 20 minutes later, I was called up again—but it was a different agent, and he had no idea what was going on (still not sure what prompted the call, honestly). As I walked back to wait, I overheard another family going through the exact same issue—kids aged 6 and 10.
Communication is key. Gate agents should be communicating with one another and I’d hope that gate agents would be aware if an aircraft swap messed up seating the previous day.
Pre-boarding started, and we still had no solution or updated boarding passes. I returned to the desk and saw them negotiating with a man in his mid-thirties. He said, “If I’m not compensated, I’m not moving.” I get it—nobody wants to move without a reason—but ultimately, he refused and boarded.
I understand the selfish behavior of this man…as a father, I tend to be more sensitive to these issues now, but I’d still not move from an aisle or window seat to a middle seat for a transatlantic flight without generous compensation and remember, it was United that swapped aircraft at the last minute.
Now I’m starting to get anxious. I asked the agents if they could split up a large group of retirees, assuming some were seated together. The agent replied, “They’re Premier members. We can’t do that.” So I asked why so many people seemed to be getting options and votes in this situation when my four-year-old clearly hadn’t. No response.
Well, I appreciate that agents tried to avoid moving MileagePlus Premier members…that sort of loyalty is noted and appreciated. Even so, it doesn’t excuse not helping the family. I just find it hard to imagine the entire aircraft was filled by passengers with elite status.
Finally, they said they had a solution. Relief. We were handed four boarding passes. We went to scan them, but one was rejected. The agent tried again—still red. Flustered, she told us to “just go.” We walked onto the plane and to our seats—only to see the same guy from earlier, the one who had refused to move, sitting in one of our seats.
I looked down. Sure enough, one of the boarding passes they printed had his name on it.
Oops. That’s not only a careless error, but a security issue since this man boarded without his boarding pass being scanned.
It wasn’t over. I spoke to the flight attendant, explained the situation, and she asked for my passport and boarding pass so she could go back to the gate. I started walking with her, but before she exited the plane, she suddenly turned to me and said, “Oh, sir, you have to stay on the plane.” I ignored her—I wasn’t about to let the flight take off with my passport and boarding pass somewhere else. I had zero confidence in their ability to fix anything, and at that point, I technically wasn’t even checked into the flight.
This part does not concern me a bit…the whole “I ignored her” thing. I understand his point and his rationale for disobeying the order, but it strikes me as unnecessarily combative. You really think you’re going to shut up and don’t protest if you don’t get your passport back before the aircraft door closes?
At the gate, I noticed two first-class tickets on the screen that hadn’t been claimed. I said, “Let’s make this easy—just swap us into those two and we’re out of your hair.” The agent replied, “Sir, I can’t do that. It’s too expensive.”
Clever…not.
I said, “You’re about to seat a four-year-old alone. This is a safety issue.”
He said, “You’re diagonal from him—one aisle, one row. Isn’t that okay?”
I asked, “How am I supposed to help him put on an oxygen mask in an emergency? And why am I explaining this to you?”
That’s a fair response…and can you imagine the stranger who finds himself or herself next to a 4-year-old? It’s not appropriate by any means, even for a (relatively) mature child.
Finally—finally—with boarding almost complete, he found a solution. We had two pairs. Boarding passes in hand, I walked down the jetway, trying to calm myself. I told myself, “All’s well that ends well.”
But nope.
As soon as I stepped onto the plane, the same flight attendant I had ignored earlier pulled me aside and said, “Sir, I need to let you know we have to file an FAA report because you deboarded the plane.” I replied, “Great—make sure to mention that you let someone on without a boarding pass.”
I like his comeback (I can’t help but wonder if he was that quick on his feet or that is what he wanted to say as he reflected on what happened).
The rest of the flight was uneventful—except for the petty comments and lack of service from that same flight attendant. But that’s another story…
In the end, this experience was almost too absurd to believe. The number of times I heard, “I’m sorry, but it’s out of our control,” combined with the obvious safety issue (a four-year-old seated alone) and the security breach (someone boarding without a valid pass), makes me honestly afraid to ever fly United again.
Ok, that’s a stretch…the “I’ll never fly United again…” stuff is cringe-worthy.
But the point is well-taken that United did not handle this well.
United has done a fabulous job of improving its technology over the last five years. I hope United will take anecdotes like this and work a (relatively) fail-safe solution for keeping families seated together…this kind of airport wrangling is stressful for all parties. The “system” should be able to fix this when there is an airport swap.
That’s a big part of “Good leads the way.” Families should not have to fight to have their 4-year-old seated next to them…
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Kinda strange that the gate agents didn’t ask more people in that seating vicinity. Went through something similar when traveling with my grandmother on ANC-MSP last summer when it switched from a 16 seat F 739 to a 20 seater. DL’s system switched us from 1A and 1B to 1D and 3C. I asked the gate agent and explained the situation with proof (i.e we had 1A and 1B originally in the original booking) and they called up those in 1A, 1B, 1C, and 3D. Folks in 1A and 1B didn’t mind switching so we got our original seats back, but 1C was more than willing to switch with me to 3C so I could sit next to my grandmother.
The other thing is that if a grown man says something on the lines of not switching seats to sit next to a minor, I’d be concerned as well, especially in a two-seater config like a 767’s 2-3-2. But, if you’re going to switch seats, especially in Y, you have to be prepared to add something extra to convince them to switch, and if I had a kid and were in this person’s shoes, I’d pay the person in booze or something for the safety of my child.
Like what the comment above says with “be prepared to add something extra to convince them to switch.”
Took my sister’s kids to Orlando a few years ago and somehow my nieces and I were in 12A-C but my nephew was in 22F. Offered 12D to pay for all the alcohol/snacks/food on board and his traveling companions and that sweetened the deal. Point is, money/alcohol/food talks and sweetens trades.
I have been hit with the equipment change issue a number of times when traveling with my children. Usually a solution can be worked out, but the airline agents are rarely helpful– to the contrary, involving them usually makes the problem worse. The kindness of other passengers is usually part of the solution.
The only time we were completely stuck was when we encountered a married couple that were travelling together but refused to sit next to each other and also would not switch to a comparable seat. The end result was my wife flew with one of our kids as a lap child, even though the child was too old to be a lap child and we had paid for a seat.
I was thinking this exact solution, Mr Marcus. Their infant was 18 months, qualifying as a lap child. Not ideal but would solve the immediate problem without the mental gymnastics. Or they could have upgraded the guy that was firm in his choice of seat, thus using only one of the “too expensive” seats.
Geneva to Newark with an 18mo lap child, and a 4 year old in the seat next to you, while your spouse is elsewhere in the plane is a pretty tough trip considering you paid for 4 seats together (assuming that this person did so).
Also, typically the airlines tend to take the stance of “if you paid for a seat for your child they have to be in that seat, you can’t make them a lap child once onboard” We got lucky on our flight by not calling attention to ourselves, and it was only a 90 minute flight, and my kids are small for their age.
After the stink this guy raised, I’d be almost certain that they wouldn’t have let them play the lap-child card.
The danger of making a big deal out of this, as the dad did, is that if you piss off enough of the folks who are there to (hopefully) help you they can always fall back on “You know you’re right. This is unsafe. We’ll rebook you on the next flight that has 4 seats together for you. See you next Tuesday”
As Jerry commented below, it seems strange that within a wide body jet in economy that the dad couldn’t find some way to work out getting 2 seats together by talking with surrounding passengers.
I see your point. And while it may not be the best solution , I would have chosen this option rather than flight attendant fuss. If you need to go forward it’s better than the back & forth kvetching. Plus I always wanted my kids at hand, not elsewhere. : )
Not that it solves everything, but why wouldn’t the adult with the lap toddler take one of the single seats and the other adult sit next to the four year old in the pair?
While Matthew writes a long article in support of this man, he sends his own children in seats not adjacent to him, which is hypocritical behavior.
I only mention this because Matthew attacks his reader’s comments, even trying to shame them when they take covid precautions. A very sad day when Matthew does that. Hopefully, that will improve in the future.
I hope you don’t take personal offense to my COVID-19 comments…I think you are far too cautious and one of our biggest lessons of the pandemic was overreacting via general lockdowns and extended in-person school closures.
I’m not sure what you mean, though, by putting my children in non-adjacent seats.
Thank you for your kind comments. The hatchet is buried.
The reference was when the little kids sit by themselves in business class. Unattended, they could injure themselves, like crushing a hand while the seat is moving or not putting on the oxygen mask in time.
The pandemic is still ongoing. Last I read, more people die of Covid than from car accidents. Lots of people are no longer covered by vaccines, having been vaccinated too long ago and by vaccines of the strains no longer in much circulation. I fly now but, like a few passengers I see, I wear a mask. It’s not I am trying to land a hot date. If I avoid Covid, it’s a better trip. I personally know 2 families that got Covid from travel in 2024 and they were very sick, not just a cold. One person has long Covid, the other family does not. Curiously, the one that did not get long Covid has metastatic breast cancer and could be immunosuppressed. The person that got long covid was very healthy before that.
I disagree with this take on the COVID reactions. Partly I think this is hindsight bias. We have a pretty good understanding *now* of the risk groups, short and long term effects, transmissibility, etc. of COVID but we didn’t know then. Our 2020 reactions were in response to a novel virus killing literally tens of thousands of people every month.
Second, COVID was still very deadly. In 2021, hospitals were still overflowing with patients while people died in ambulances waiting for space because of the Delta variant. COVID killed 2/3rds as many people as cancer in 2021, but cancer deaths are steady year after year. COVID didn’t exist 2 years earlier. And these weren’t people who would have just died anyway. In less than 3 years, COVID caused 1.2 million *extra* deaths in the US. That is like 2 fully loaded 500+ passenger A380s crashing a day, every day, for 22 months straight.
COVID response was contradictory, inconsistently applied, mishandled, and many other issues. But the last thing I would take away from the pandemic would be overreaction.
I think there’s some embellishing going on here. The whole “first class” thing tells me this person doesn’t travel too much. I also find it unlikely nobody around them volunteered to move once onboard. That just doesn’t track with reality. I’m sorry they had a disappointing flight.
The story was posted on reddit yesterday, I wonder when the last time 957 had an equipment change. I don’t see one in the last 3 months
I don’t know where to find that info, but UA does operate two 763 (the scheduled plane for that service) models, with one losing 50 Y seats to gain 14 more premium sears (+16 J, -2 PE). My guess is they didn’t pay for seat assignments and only got seats together in rows 45 to 50 right at checkin. UA swapped in the version with more premium seats that doesn’t have rows after 44, and they had to be moved. So, one possibility here is they did not have seat assignments before checkin on return (saves money!) and risked this happening even without a swap. If true, I blame them. Don’t pay to get 4 together hoping to get them anyway and b!itch if your scheming doesn’t work.
I’m gonna show some Gen-X thinking regarding this situation: If my daughter at 4yo would have sat cross aisle from me, it would have been perfect for her to demonstrate some independence skills. I would have told the person sitting next to her that my daughter is a perfect seat companion and will not bother her in the slightest but I will expect them to put my daughter’s oxygen mask on in the event of an emergency and request a verbal confirmation of this responsibility.
2 weeks before my daughter’s first flight, I took her to Reagan airport to acclimatize her to the whole process: A tour of the check-in area, security, and of course, the coffee/donut area and that she would have movies aboard and coloring books. She was super excited to go and always a joy to fly with (although one ‘timeout’ did occur).
Bottom line, cash talks and the father should have ponied up some bucks to get by his kid. Instead he wasted everyone’s time and risked a future banning by crying like a little b#tch.
Zero sympathy for the cheap bastard. My guess is he is an attention wh#re and loves how Reddit famous he has become.
I never know whether you are stirring the pot to try to help me get more engagement or really mean this…how is it possibly his fault or remotely unreasonable to want to sit next to his four-year-old?
“Oops. That’s not only a careless error, but a security issue since this man boarded without his boarding pass being scanned.” – Actually the system worked. It was the “Just go” agent that screwed up. I suspect the reason that the boarding pass was rejected was that the passenger DID have his pass scanned, so a duplicate scan would not work.
“At the gate, I noticed two first-class tickets on the screen that hadn’t been claimed. I said, “Let’s make this easy—just swap us into those two and we’re out of your hair.” The agent replied, “Sir, I can’t do that. It’s too expensive.””
“Clever…not.”
Agreed. Suggesting an upgrade to an FA to fix a child or spouse seating issue comes across as opportunistic because it usually is. Best to let them come up with the idea themselves.
You suggest ” let the agents come up with the upgrade switch” but the agent DID NOT COME UP WITH THAT. At that point in the boarding process, the excuse that the upgrade tickets cost too much is no longer valid as there will be no lost revenue, and United CREATED THE PROBLEM WITH THE AIRCRAFT SWAP.
A seat swap if I’m seated next to someone else’s child would be an offer I can’t refuse. Even if it meant giving up an aisle seat for a middle seat on a 10 hr flight.
Even that Wall Street bro who grabbed an infant and managed to get a seat on the Titanic life rafts ; a child is a strong bargaining chip.
It would be very easy for airline systems to be updated to keep parents and children seated together, regardless of the issue. Hell, if they can charge different prices for different seats across all aircraft types, why not this? Oh, of course, it doesn’t make money.
They have a system. They just need to adapt it. “Persons of size” who require a second seat must be kept together with that seat so I assume there is a code that locks them together. Just use it for kids.
To be fair, persons of size also have issues with the seats they have bought being incorrectly coded, not honored, given away to standby passengers, etc. It is definitely not a properly integrated system on almost any airline.
It should be mandatory for children under a certain age to be seated next to a parent/guardian.
I am a parent and I would NOT want to sit next to someone else’s four year old.
I have seen very strange behavior relating to seat assignments. I had a married couple try to make me move my then 4yo out of his assigned seat next to me to one of their seats several aisles back so they could sit together. I declined their request, they insisted and it ended with me shouting at them (I regretted losing my temper) and two other passengers swapping seats with them.
Matthew, how can you not realize that this story is full of fiction? There are a lot of missing facts and pieces here. Most noticeably, a flight attendant cannot, AND WILL NOT under fear of being fired, leave the aircraft to bring a customer’s boarding pass and passport up to the gate agent. The flight attendant is required onboard by the FAA, and even if there are more flight attendants than the FAA minimum, the employee can still only “briefly step off the aircraft in the vicinity of the boarding door to assist a wheelchair customer.”
In 99% of cases, the flight attendant would ask the customer to deplane and walk back up to the gate podium to speak to the agent themselves…. yes, passengers can leave the plane; flight attendants cannot. And lastly, there is no such thing as an FAA report for a passenger “deboarding” the plane. There’s simply no such thing in existence that prevents the customer from disembarking. Passengers can walk right off and head back out on the jet bridge to claim their duty free, or go see the agent.
This story is full of click bait and emotive anecdotes that are clearly fictitious, and I expect more from your articles.
I’ve been flying long enough to know that FAs make up a lot of rules…I’m not prepared to say this story is fake and in any case, is instructive. Who possibly has time to make up such fables?
I had a similar situation with United trying to put my then 14 month old in a middle seat by himself separated from my wife and me. Our original flight was cancelled (technical issue, not weather) and we were put onto a new flight but all separated. Agents on the phone told us we needed to resolve the issue at the airport and agents at the airport told us we should have resolved it on the phone. After almost an hour of going back and forth with the gate agent (by this time, nearly the entire aircraft had boarded) a supervisor came and offered someone compensation to switch seats. Comp was accepted and we flew home without issue. Clearly UA has the ability to compensate passengers for this kind of situation. Maybe the difference from the post is that we were flying out of a hub (EWR) as opposed to an outstation (GVA)?
This reads like a total clusterf that could’ve been resolved at any stage prior to the veiled comment about a report being filed. I get you have rose tinted glasses on for UA but come on, this was a diabolical experience all round for the family involved.