Child-free flight zones: what do you think?

[HelenMumsnet]

Morning. We've just seen this article in the Telegraph about a Malaysian airline which has launched 'quiet zones' on selected flights, where children under the age of 12 are not permitted to sit.

It seems that a recent poll of Telegraph Travel readers also found that nearly 70% would support the introduction of child-free flights.

What do you think?

Should people have the right to travel without being 'disturbed by noisy children'? Or not?

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.

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.

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

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

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!

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.

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...

fab idea and I also support merrylegs POV

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.

This thread has just been mentioned on BBC Breakfast.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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?

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

Have flown a lot in the past year with DD who is now 18 months old - around 30K miles in total....

The airlines don't help the situation at all. Some airlines, such as Air Canada are wonderful. I am happy to name and shame SAS as the most young child unfriendly airline known to man. I loved that we bought a seat for our DD (business class) only to be thrown into the back and given a partial refund instead of a full refund for DD's seat and a partial refund based on the difference between the cost of the economy and business seat on the day we booked for mine. If children are not allowed in business class then why sell us the darn seat in the first place?!? Oh and then I had to have DD on my lap for the 8hr flight. I was 'only' 5 months pregnant. When DD howled because the stewardess made me wait 20mins for water to make up her bottle I was so fed up I let her scream her lungs out as it was the only way to get things moving.

Oh and the other thing is that SAS never let us board first. Every other airline in the world lets you on first so you can get your child settled. Heck, Air Canada provided assistance this summer to help me get from one end of the airport to the other to make a connection. They had someone at the gate to carry the handluggage and help me through security because I was on my own with DD.

In general I am pro childfree things - I like childfree time. but I think this is different because flying is not about leisure, it is about getting from A to B, and it restricts families' options to do this. Also, it sends bad messages to (bad) parents about children's behaviour - it's a short of shrugged acceptance that children will be horrible, whereas in fact many families try very hard not to be annoying and many childfree people try very hard to be accommodating, and those stances should be encouraged rather than marginalised.

Eg for the restaurant analogy: children should try to be reasonably pleasant when in Pizza Express, where people are just trying to have a nice lunch. They should not be taken into dinner time at elegant restaurants, where people are going to spend 3 hours eating and drinking slowly in their loveliest clothes and gazing into each other's eyes. Once in a while in a hot day they will go a bit mental with ice lollies in the garden in their bathing suits. This argument implies that all child-friendly flights should be like the garden on the hot day. I think they should be like pizza express.

Children can fly in business and first too, y'know.

I think this is a fab idea. And am failing to see why people are raising such objections.
There are plently of other places that don't allow children. There are plenty of holiday firms that offer childfree holidays/adult only holidays.
Not everyone has children, likes children, or wants to be with children.
I quite like being without mine, sometimes, thank you very much.

There are plenty of flights. For you, em , our children.
And this is just another option that is being offred, that might appeal to some people.

Child free places and child free restaurants appeal to me. We take our kids to places. But sometimes I go, with a friend or my mum and I don't wish to have children there. I'm tryingto escape them!!

So I think this idea is perfectly fine.

I work on aeroplanes, and have had far more trouble with the adult passengers than I ever had with children. It wasn't families misbehaving, either, that I've had to call the police for! At the end of the day, aeroplanes are just very fancy public transport. Everyone should be able to use it. Even children!

Btw I miss having kids able to come and visit 'the box.' Without exception, children going on holiday are funny, polite, excited and a pleasure to be around. Adults on flights are often a royal pain in the bottom.

I think it misses the point that children are far from the only annoyance when flying, I have had rubbish flights because the parents of the child behind didn't stop him/her banging the tray up and down or kicking the seat - but also because the person sitting next to me drank for the first hour and then snored for the rest, while falling into my seat and another lovely long-haul next to someone who vomited for about 10 hours...