Discrimination against black people or Arabs as a class by companies involved in the provision of interstate transportation services has been found to be constitutionally forbidden. Discrimination against toddlers by said companies has not been found to be constitutionally forbidden.
How about fat people?
Not constitutionally protected. maybe by state constitutions, and if the weight is a result of a disability, possibly under the ADA, but not under the federal constitution.
I bet if I only restrict malodorous fat people, or the slender but esthetically-challenged I’d be completely in the clear, right?
Legally? Probably, depending how you worded it. Depending on the jurisdiction too - you probably want to plan for the most restrictive one, because as an airline you’ll be subject to many.
That would be illegal discrimination. You can ban especially loud or loutish people in general. Might be hard to avoid a lawsuit if you decide a black guy is loud and loutish, though.
Well, this is obviously a business decision that the airline has to make, but it sounds okay to me. The $100,000 spent by the twenty people getting pissed off around the baby outweighs the $10,000 spent by the baby’s parents.
The people in coach are paying for cheap transportation and are going to put up with the baby like they put up with all the other hassles in coach.
That doesn’t mean it won’t be less noticeable.
The airlines worry about their first-class passengers deciding to do exactly that.
Crying children are especially annoying. On Absolute Air, I would certainly kick out any adult from first class who manages to be as annoying as a crying child.
Well, for 10 grand, I do expect a few perks. 
What, you’re talking about child labor in 1910 or something? How does that have anything to do with preventing a spoiled, misbehaving brat from sitting in first class?
Apparently they don’t, since other than a vague story about a flight attendant on United, no one has shown that an airline will stop you from buying a first class ticket for your child. Incidentally, I just looked at Open Skies’ website (formerly L’Avion, the last of the short-lived all-business class airlines). They let me book a flight for 2 adults, a child, and an infant, and only charged half price for the infant ticket.
Very little. I just found it to be an incredible statement.
…wait…I’m confused…are you talking about yourself, or a child?
I am not aware of any airline today that would not sell a first class ticket to an infant that was accompanied by an adult.
You know, I’ve never run into any of these obnoxious noisy whiny crying kids on an airplane that everybody complains about. I DO sometimes wonder if they simply just grew up and got a job with the same folks I work for.
And it really wouldn’t make sense for the airline to turn away a group of passengers who are willing to pay four grand a pop for their tickets. Remember: You aren’t banning a crying two year old, you’re banning the kid AND their folks, so that’s twelve grand you’re expecting the air lines to just give up that kind of money for the benefit of a passenger paying a third or less of that amount?
I fly a lot. It’s often first class (about 70-80% of the time). My flight this past Sunday had two legs. On the Tampa to Chicago flight I had a woman with an infant/toddler sitting behind me in first class. The kid did cry a bit. Really nothing you can do about it. On the Chicago LA leg there was a young kid in front of me, maybe 3-5 years old? She made some sort of howling noise quite a bit, although it sounded mostly of joy versus crying. She was actually more disturbing than the baby behind me.
Many people flying first class domestically are just very frequent fliers like me and get comped upgrades. I’d estimate that’s 10-30% on any given flight.
My ticket, RT, was around $800, btw. It was paid first class on the outbound journey but I only had economy on the return. I’ve already been upgraded on the return, which is tomorrow late.
Note that the $10k flight was Chicago to London. Transoceanic flights are more expensive and first class on those flights is more exclusive. Business class on international flights is roughly analogous to first class domestic. I often flew international business with our kids when they were very young, including my sons first flight to Europe when he was two months old. He slept most of the flight and I don’t recall him crying much if at all. My daughter was two and a half at the time and also traveling with us. She sat in the seat between Mrs. Shibb and I while our son mostly slept in a bassinet that attached to the bulkhead. She also slept for the majority of the flight.
My kids have always been relatively quiet and well-behaved, so YMMV. I have only on rare occasions actually been stuck near a crying kid for most of a long flight. I blame the parents.
Not necessarily. A number of years ago I met a couple that had an 18 month old child in the United Red Carpet Club. It seems that the parents traveled the world on business, and took their little one with them. They always flew either first or business, and since they had to buy a ticket for their little on, they got their baby a mileage plus card so the kid could accumulate his own miles.
They said it was really a hoot when some business man with 200,000 lifetime miles did not get an upgrade because this baby with 500,000 miles was higher on the list. (With United the upgrades go under the rule of who has the most miles wins.)
I’m a United Red Carpet Club member and my daughters first flight at 3 months was in first class. It wasn’t a problem. Now that she is two she has her own mileage plus number. They all recognize her at our red carpet club and we got the number generated there. Generally airlines are very accommodating. Especially in first class I found the passengers and crew to be helpful and nice and my kid to hopefully sleeping through each leg.
I’ve been following Absolute’s and Shmendrick’s discussion with some interest. It covers quite well the question whether it would be in the interest of the airlines to impose a minimum age. Unfortunately (from the point of view of Absolute’s stance), the airlines don’t seem to fee that it would, since they don’t impose such an age limit and will, in fact, admit children and babies if the fare is paid for. Doesn’t that answer the OP’s question?
Possibly both - I had a flight attendant spend a good 20 minutes playing with my one-year-old daughter and we were in economy. Or maybe she was also giving you a break from being bothered by a young child - all part of the service.
I can also remember being on a flight in which the parents sat in first (or maybe business) class and their eight-year-old son sat by himself in economy (because hey, legroom isn’t an issue). He looked really miserable the entire trip.
FF here–well, 120 or so segments a year, anyway.
There is no age restriction (even a lapchild is allowed) for flying First Class, unfortunately. Nor is there a hygiene, weight, general incompetence or anti-social behaviour screening. It’s all so sad.
With specific respect to children: These are best left at home with the nanny until they are well-groomed and well-behaved, and have reached at least 25 years of age.
That’s absurd.
They’re barely edible at that point.