UK plans free family seating and removal of flight name-change fees
The UK government plans to prevent airlines from charging parents to sit beside children under 14 and to remove fees for correcting simple booking-name mistakes. Ministers are seeking to introduce the measures before next summer’s holidays as Parliament considers wider aviation consumer-protection powers.
Airlines in the United Kingdom are set to be barred from charging parents extra to sit beside children under 14 under government plans announced as Parliament debates new travel rules. The proposed requirement would oblige airlines to seat a child next to a parent or accompanying adult without an additional fee. Passengers would also no longer have to pay to correct a simple spelling mistake in a name on a flight booking.
Ministers are understood to be aiming to introduce the changes before the start of next year’s summer holidays. The measures are part of a wider civil aviation consumer-protection and regulatory reform bill, which would give ministers flexible powers to define passenger rights and the obligations of airlines and airports. Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the proposals were intended to tackle what he called the “little charges that add up” for families planning holidays.
He described fees for family seating and booking corrections as unfair and said the government wanted to address small costs that waste passengers’ time and money. The Department for Transport estimates that arranging seats together can cost a parent and child as much as £104 on a return journey. Rory Boland, editor of Which?
Travel, said it was unfair to require parents and children as young as three to pay extra simply to sit together. Ryanair changed its family-seating policy earlier this year after an investigation into its charges. The Competition and Markets Authority found that the airline had typically charged about £8 each way for a mandatory family seat.
Under its revised arrangement, parents may still pay to choose a preferred seat, while children sit alongside or near them without an additional charge. Separately, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has announced plans for airlines, the government and trade unions to share information about disruptive passengers. Government figures record more than 1,000 serious incidents in 2025, including a reported mid-air brawl that caused a diversion.
Airlines could use the proposed system to ban repeat offenders.
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