Child-free flight zones: what do you think?

I would fly business or first if I could afford to, believe me.

Wouldn't it be nice at airports if there was a family check in so no queuing to put the bags through and being shoved out of the way by very important businessmen on their phones?

Nice airport has a soft play. It's small and ok for a play before a flight, not wandering round and round duty free whilst your flight is delayed or fighting for a seat together then having to move as a dc wants the loo and having to take all your bags and dc to squash into a loo. Although I suppose that's the point- nothing to do but spend.

If you want peace when you fly, fly business or upper class. No one is entitled to a quiet flight. It's up to parents to deal with their children and help them learn how to behave. But adults need to behave to. It's all so entitled isn't it?

What about if you get someone who wants to "chat" on a 7 hr flight when actually, a little polite interchange will so, so you can read your book or watch a film.

And overweight passengers who take up more space than they've been allocated.....ought not they to have a separate plane? Or maybe the old people who fly and are up and down, up and down to the loo!

Christ, what next?

Peter Yorke on PM yesterday was just acting up. I bet he doesn't actually believe half the things he said. It was all very good-natured and sounded like they were just having a bit of fun really.

I'd love child-free flights. Specifically, screaming-baby-free flights.

But it would make just as much sense to have 'no loud drunken wankers' flights.

It's not children who are annoying on flights, it's parents who refuse to control them. If a baby cries, there is nothing you can do about it, and if it s a 12 hour flight, the child will fall asleep eventually.
But, you can stop your toddler running up and down the aisles and continually kicking the back of other people's seats. I remember being on a flight a few years ago, and everytime I drifted off to sleep, I was woken up by a couple of 5/6 year olds running up and down the aisle.
My sister thinks it is ok (and actually thinks it is amusing for her kids to sneak into business/first class and take stuff from the bar/buffet on board.
I found the perfect solution (I believe someone suggested cubicles up thread).
Travel Emirates first class. You get your own suite, 40 year old port, and guards to keep the other people out.

People fart more on flights than they do on trains or buses because of the change in pressure.

Have you ever seen a crisp packet puff up on a flight? That's what the air in your colon is doing.

On a flight back from Miami once, there was a poor woman with a screaming baby of a few months old. To her credit, she was trying her best to soothe it and, in order to give passengers nearby a break, she took the baby to the back of the plane, where it proceeded to disturb everyone sitting there instead.

And I ended up sitting with my own youngish dcs on a long-haul flight from KL once, while dh ended up on his own way up the plane (for complicated reasons that I couldn't argue with at the time). My dcs were as good as gold, and slept for the majority of the flight, whereas dh ended up just behind someone else's screaming baby. Karma!

This thread has just been mentioned on BBC Breakfast.

Oh yes, some people definitely have a downer on kids before they have even moved! DS got an earful from a grumpy old bag who told him off for running into her last week. Fair enough, except that he had been completely stationary watching in shock as she walked backwards into him while talking on her phone.

fab idea and I also support merrylegs POV

The most anti social behaviour on flights is either from stag do (short haul) or the overweight lecherous 50 ishmale who takes over half of my seat. I was about to complain about the latter when his own family moved him...

BoffinMum I think I would have reacted like that too. Some people have a downer on children before they have uttered a single sound and I think they almost want them to misbehave so they can enjoy tutting loudly, making horrid comments and giving evil stares.

There have been a couple of occasions where we have been the family you see at the little lounge by the gate and think dear god I hope we aren't near them.

Thankfully they are generally fine once on the plane!

I know that doesn't justify it. DH in fact told me off.

It was a bloody awful haircut. She looked like a nun without a headdress. Complemented by her cat's bum mouth.

The kicking thing is hard with small kids because their legs have to stretch along the seat and their feet end up touching the back of the seat in front as they can't dangle their legs down like taller people. We had a terrible flight to Munich once with a grumpy childless woman in front of DC4 complaining every time he so much as shifted position. He wasn't kicking, she just assumed he was, and as the grumpy cow also refused to swap seats with one of us to avoid the problem, I am afraid I ended up giving her an earful (in German, which shocked her!) and also insulted her haircut. She shut up after that. I probably shouldn't have insulted her haircut but she was getting on my tits big time.

My children go to sleep on long-haul flights. They don't take up much room, they don't make any noise or smells and they don't get drunk and harrass the flight attendants.

I would love a child free flight, but I have to take the buggers with me

You wonder what the reaction would be I said there should be an old people only section on the grounds that I can't stand to listen to them moaning on. People would say that it is wrong to generalise about people because of their age and it was age discrimination - there are all kinds of old people and yes, some of them moan but some of them don't.

But people never say that about children: there's only one kind of child and that kind makes a lot of noise and so should be segregated from the rest of society.

I have flown regularly in the past with DS, as our family is very scattered across europe and also sometimes because DH's job takes him all over the place.

I am usually conscious of wary /disapproving glances as we wait for the flight/ board the plane. Then at the end of the flight, without exception, people have actually come up to me to thank me and say how well behaved DS is.
Its not hard - I just make sure his needs (food, comfort, entertainment) are met and if necessary put my own needs second.

I have only ever once been bothered by a screaming baby on a flight. ds kept trying to offer it food/ toys. I could smell from where we were that the poor thing needed a nappy change but its mother just ignored it and read her book. so it wasn't really the child who was the problem there.

did make me chuckle though when we flew a month or so ago, as DS (age 2) protested when he saw a baby on the aeroplane and told me that he wanted the baby to get off the aeroplane and stay on the runway. seems like he will be the first to try and book on a childfree flight.

I wish there could be a no farting cabin.

Someone near me was letting off some unbelievably smelly guffs on the last flight I was on.

I was not impressed.

Child noise would have been much more preferable.

Sounds like hell, can't imagine anything worse than being on a 'family flight' where the irresponsible parents think it's OK to pay their children even less attention than normal because everyone else is a parent as well. Other people's children are hell, i don't want to be forced into a flight with nothing but.

My children are of course incredibly well behaved and charm everyone .

I think it is a great idea - nothing worse than being stuck on a long haul flight with a screaming baby.

I have no problem with noise, babies are people, they've a right to be there, and listening to a bit of crying never killed anyone. Hate being kicked in the back for hours on end by a kiddie in the seat behind though! Why do parents NEVER try to stop their child from doing this?!