A B.C. father says it’s unfair that he was forced to pay several seat selection fees in order to guarantee his children would be sitting with him on a recent cross-country flight on WestJet, but the airline insists it would never split up a family.

When Joby Oommen booked a WestJet flight for his family from Abbotsford to Halifax he was surprised to discover the airline was charging to pre-book seats. Oommen spent almost an hour on the phone with a WestJet agent debating the fees, to no avail. As a father of two young children, Oommen felt he had no choice but to pay.

"I can't have my two-year-old sitting in some other part of a plane, you know next-door sitting next to someone, and I don't know who they are. They could be a criminal or pedophile whatever," said Oommen.

The Oommen family paid $30 before tax to select three seats on the first leg of their flight from Abbotsford to Calgary, and then paid $45 to advance book another three seats on the flight from Calgary to Halifax. Pre-booking seats for the return flight from Halifax to Toronto cost the family $30. Plus Oommen paid $45 for another three seats from Toronto to Calgary. Finally, WestJet charged the Oommen's $30 to pre-book three seats on the flight from Calgary home to Abbotsford.

"The total was 15 seats, essentially, that I had to pay for and a whopping $189 dollars later for just picking seats."

WestJet told CTV consumer reporter Lynda Steele that it will not separate children from their families and says parents need to inform the airline when booking that those small children will be travelling. WestJet defines young children as 2-12 years old.

Automated software then sorts bookings 72 hours prior to the flight and assigns children seats next to their parents.

"If it gets all the way to the boarding lounge and the family realizes they're not sitting together by looking at their boarding passes, then we'll fix it on the airplane. We'll take a delay if necessary to make sure the child is sitting with their family," said Robert Palmer, WestJet Manager of Public Relations.  

Oommen feels seat selection should be free for everyone, so nobody is forced to move.  In the meantime, he still feels pressured into paying the fee to keep his family together, even though WestJet insists it would never separate children from their parents.

"The reality is, that's your choice. You do have many other options, but you can let us take care of it, and we will at no charge," said Palmer.

WestJet started the seat selection fee three years ago, claiming passengers wanted the choice whether to sit in an aisle, window or exit seat.

CTV has learned that a formal complaint was filed with the Canadian Transportation Agency about these seat selection fees, which are industry standard. The C.T.A. is expected to ask all Canadian airlines to answer to that complaint and if it rules those fees are unreasonable or discriminatory it has the power to force airlines to change the conditions or drop the fees altogether.