I came across this article this morning on LinkedIn: My 2-year-old gave up his seat on an American Airlines flight. Where’s my refund! It’s a perplexing and bewildering series of responses by American Airlines’ customer service team. TLDR: John Bailey paid for a separate seat for his 2-year-old grandson, as required a federal law. An American flight attendant had the child give up their PURCHASED seat in order to accommodate another passenger’s comfort, with the airline then refusing to refund the purchase with a bewildering series of nonsensical responses. (Side note: I’m quite confident that these responses were AI Slop.) Resolution finally happened when the purchaser filed a complaint regarding the illegal request for the child to sit in the grandparent’s lap (federal law REQUIRES children over 2 to have their own seat. Something the airline kept overlooking…or not caring.
I see this as a classic case of Cory Doctorow’s “enshittification“. As airlines slide towards monopolies and competition collapses, they have no incentive to provide quality service. The monopolization and concentration of power is exploitive and destructive, as this case highlights.
Enshittification is, supposedly, more of an internet-based phenomenon. Monopolization has a wider impact, though. And both need to be addressed to move us towards a just and equitable future.
