United Apologizes After Giving Away Toddler’s Purchased Seat by NY Times. Not sure how United could be this stupid again. If you’re going to require children over the age of 2 to have a purchased seat you can’t then force them to be a lap toddler when it suits your needs. Issuing an apology five days after the incident is also a ridiculous response. It’s hard to feel any level of sympathy when they keep making such basic mistakes such as these and then after making those mistakes failing to properly fix them & issue a genuine response.