to be horrified by children´s behaviour on flight?

[Happy36]

Am I unreasonable to think that one should keep an eye on one´s children during a flight and try to ensure that their behaviour does not upset other passengers unnecessarily?

Just had a horrendous experience with what felt like a whole plane full of children (not toddlers - children aged between 5 and 15) screaming, shouting, running around, dropping rubbish, bouncing over the seats, ignoring the airline staff. Children will be children, that much can´t be denied, but what horrified me was the parents´ total oblivion to the situation.

Also I felt sorry for the airline staff and wonder whether there are any possible ways for airlines to encourage passengers more strongly against indulging in anti-social behaviour.

I think I've been very lucky recently, was on 3 flights on Sunday that were packed with young children (following the Hari Raya holidays). There was very little disruption, one screeching on and off on the last flight but between 9pm and midnight I can hardly blame them. Prior to that the only one I noticed was a little boy seated immediately behind me who I played peekaboo with and eventually plucked up the courage to try touching the fingertip of the big strange white person! His dad was keeping an eye throughout and although he had a bit of a wander in the aisle was scooped up when then trolleys needed to come through and prevented from trying to climb on the empty seat next to me. All very sensible.

YABU to be horrified. I despair at the levels of intolerance and judginess on this thread as well as the general air of sanctimony: "Oh well, little Arabella is always so well behaved on planes, but that's because she's used to flying and we are generally just such superior parents..."

I once flew alone with my 3 children when they were younger and quite frankly they behaved like shits. It wasn't for the lack of me trying. Just not one of their best days (overtired, overexcited, etc). It wouldn't have helped to be be given death stares and nasty comments. Get over yourselves some of you and have some empathy.

Can't wait for the 28h flight back to the UK later this year, joy.

Oh wait - I'll be fine, I'll be in business. It's DH that'll have the boys in economy

By far the worse behaviour I've seen on flights in recent years has been by groups of hen/stag parties - drunk / loud / foul language / ridiculous clothes / standing in isles etc. the children on flights are a dream in comparison.

Cabin crew on a flight to Faro this summer were telling us that for some flights they have the the police on-board for boarding as a warning and are looking at changes in legislation to deal with anti-social behaviour.

Is "ridiculous clothes" a problem?

The parents made no attempt to quieten them down or apologise to the poor staff.

I really dislike parents like this...they give those of us who do try a bad name. I go to HUGE lengths to keep my children bound and gagged quiet enough during flights. I get them new stuff, I pack so many activities to keep them occupied, I forgo sleep (still recovering from not so recent long haul flights) because it is bloody common courtesy not to disrupt people in general on flights.

It can be hard work, but I think that others don't pay out hundreds of $'s to listen to my children for 24hrs!

Kids Fly Cargo Class?

"Is "ridiculous clothes" a problem?"

Yes - seems to encourage the "look at us" behaviour.

I remember the last time we flew, on our stop over we had a few hours to wait. There were very few seats & one woman had let her children sprawl out & sleep on them. 8 seats in all, 4 taken by each child. Kids about 10yrs old.

Now I know kids get tired flying, but not one consideration as given for me, holding a sleeping 3yr old, while standing, or an elderly person finding it hard to stand.

She kept her head in her book the whole time (with her arse on the end on one of the sets of seats) until a staff member asked her to make room for the elderly person.

How did people get so inconsiderate!

I fly quite a bit for work and have also done quite a few transatlantic trips in the last few years. I can't recall any time when there were 'bad' children. Babies cry and toddlers scream sometimes, but then I'm sure they don't really enjoy being stuck in a small space and not really understanding what's going on. Plus most babies/toddlers are a pain at least once every few hours when off planes, so why should they be any different on planes? Over the age of about five they, like the adults (and me) are plugged into the in flight entertainment.

The only really anti-social behaviour I've experienced has come from adults. I'm yet to come across a drunk and lairy child.

We flew home long-haul at the weekend, and for the 14-hour leg of the flight, we discovered that we were all sitting apart. Hadn't occurred to us to check, as for all the other legs, out and back, we'd been seated together.

As soon as we noticed, DH asked the airline to seat the 4 of us together. We were held in the lounge until the last minute, and then boarded last, so I suppose to the casual observer, it might have looked as if we were late. We definitely were not.

Our DC are 3 and 5. It was the airline's error. All our other legs, we'd been seated together, or at least 2 + 2. We'd booked through a travel agent, so expected them to book the flights suitably.

Were we being unreaonable to be annoyed that the airline made a mistake?

What would other passengers prefer....? To be seated next to an unaccompanied 3-year old, who was up and down to the loo, making endless requests re the in-flight entertainment system, and then when asleep, leaning on them, and curling up, and probably putting their legs on them? For a 14-hour flight....?

I'm intrigued that it's considered perfectly acceptable for other passengers to deal with my 3-YO DC on a 14-hour flight...

I still have back ache from holding 4 yr old asleep on my lap during 12 hour flight a month ago. Her tiny foot was resting against big muscle man next to me. He kept flicking it off And disturbing her sleep... Not sure exactly what he wad hoping to achieve? At least she was still and quiet!

I know Japanese I often wonder the same when that comes up on these threads! If anyone wants to sit next to my little ones on a 12 hour journey they are most welcome to keep them entertained!

JapaneseMargaret - it was your responsibility to check like the rest of us do. While I wouldn't want to sit next to an unaccompanied child I also wouldn't (if flying long haul) want to be separated from the people I was travelling with.

Years ago I was on a flight where "Damon" was sat behind me constantly kicking my seat. After an hour or so (it was an 8 hour flight) I stood and asked the mother to stop him doing it (Damon was about 5). All she did was say "Damon, stop that, the grumpy woman doesn't like it." Of course it made no difference. So I suggested that she and I swapped seats, and that way Damon could kick her seat, safe in the knowledge that his mum wouldn't be grumpy with him for doing it. Funnily enough she didn't seem keen.

Loxley - do you want the full details of our trip? It consisted of 7 legs altogether; all but one of them we were seated together. My husband called up a couple of days before to confirm our flights, and we were told all was fine. So far, so diligent of us.

We arrived 2.5 hours before departure to check in, to be told that the two airlines (in partnership to cover the entirety of our flights) hadn't joined things up properly, and so we weren't technically on the flight. We spent a fraught 2 hours trying to resolve it, for it to be sorted out at the very last minute, boarding cards for the 3 legs issued, and we literally ran through security and the airport to make the flight on time. All 4 seats together. Great.

Got to the stop-over, and went to board the next leg, and realised the problem.

My DH spoke with the travel agent this morning, and they take full responsibility. Yes, we should have checked to make sure no mistakes were made, clearly we were at fault there, but, well, we're not perfect.

We were travelling for 44 hours door-to-door, including three flights, with a 3YO and a 5YO, and yes, we dropped the ball by not noticing someone else's mistake in time. It's a stressful situation at the best of times (i.e. no DC), but especially so when travel agents can't even get basic things right.

Regardless, we had to deal with it, when we realised it. Young DC can't be expected to travel alone for such a long flight, and other passangers wouldn't have appreciated the situation either. Well done, if you've never made such a mistake in a similar situation.

Last flight I was on a Mum played football up the isle with ds !!

I'm not really that interested to be honest. What did you expect other passengers to do? You admit you dropped the ball what do you expect other people to do?

I spend most flights unable to move with nausea (I sleep - DH looks after the kids) it is the reason we rarely fly long haul and the reason I am meticulous in checking travel details. If I start vomiting in a bag it would rather have DH with me to pass wipes etc than be separated from him because someone else had dropped the ball.

Look, even if we had realised the mistake on immediate issue of the boarding cards, there was zero we could do about it at the time, as there were minutes left before our first flight took off.

Even if we had checked whilst seated on that flight, there wasn't anything we could do about it until we landed. Which was when we noticed the error, anyway.

Not much time left to resolve it by then, was there?

Where is the op, nothing to add?

Thanks, Hesterton. :)

The whole journey was a nightmare, and included three separate vomiting incidents in the hire car drive from PILs to the airport, the debacle with the airline's mis-ticketing, and then the seat issue on leg 2. You couldn't make it up.

Not flying long haul from time-to-time isn't an option for us, given that mine and DH's home countries are at opposite ends of the earth. You just do the best you can under the circumstances, but sometimes events conspire against you.