Family seating guarantees are pretty crucial.

Many airlines have punitive seating algorithms (looking at you, Alaska), or pull crap like moving your seats around and separating you after you select them unless you have status (United used to, at least, since they had a practice of selling non-existing flights, then bin packing planes the day before) so without this you can end up having a breast feeding infant sitting across the plane from its family.

In essentially all cases, the kid can be put next to the parent without splitting up another parrty.

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tastyfreeze 7 hours ago | parent [-]

A breast feeding infant doesn't require a seat. Children under 2 can sit on a parent's lap.

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8organicbits 7 hours ago | parent [-]

Consider twins. My understanding is that a parent may only have one infant in their arms, the other infant needs a seat.

Nevertheless, a parent may choose to book a seat for their infant to give themselves extra space. If the airline puts that seat in a different row, it defeats the purpose.

	▲	SoftTalker 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		They may also book a seat so they can use a carseat, which they may be traveling with anwyay, and also because it's safer for the kid to be belted in, and most small kids are used to them and they will fall asleep in them.