There are plenty of ill behaved individuals older than 8.
What did MsRobyn say?! Do you want me to tell the pilot to turn this plane around? Do you? 'Cos I will, and then there’ll be NO vacation at Disneyland for you!
I wish Control could perfect the Cone of Silence.
I think it’s a bad idea. It would encourage bad behavior, not restrict it.
My kids have been flying their whole lives. The older one is 9 and the younger one is 6. Younger has very mild autism (I include this information because so many people see a spectrum dx as an inability to modify their child’s behavior, or as an excuse not to). We have standards of behavior that are enforced on airplanes, in restaurants, in movie and legitimate theaters, and other places. In fact, there are even behavior standards enforced at home, when there’s no one else around- imagine that! Our kids know how to behave like polite kids in public and private- they are still kids, but they aren’t rude, loud, ill-mannered or obnoxious.
Most of the behavior problems seen with children on planes did not suddenly manifest themselves at that second, out of the blue. The parents know damned well what to expect from their kids, and have chosen to allow it to continue. If your kid is going to need something to do on the plane, then bring it with you. Books, snacks, crayons, a hand-held gaming device, or a portable DVD player- do whatever you need to do. You could even give them, you know, your undivided attention for a while…
We seldom fly coach anymore, in part to avoid the bad behavior (by children AND adults) that people seem to consider acceptable these days.
I think it’s a bad idea.
Putting all the kids in a kid zone would encourage rambunctiousness.
Not letting loners sit in the kid zone would cause seating problems.
Damn straight. I can expect my niece to be quiet on a plane because she is a well behaved child and we will have planned ahead to occupy her time. She was actually on a cross country flight at 5. My sister planned ahead and there was no trouble.
Part of the problem would be determining the size of the kid’s section for each flight. As frequent fliers may notice, there’s different demographics for each flight, and even during different parts of the day and different seasons. Fly in or out of Buffalo, and the passengers are predominantly middle-aged and older blue-collar folks. Any flight out of Columbus I’ve been on has been loaded with suit-wearing corporate types that looked like they stepped out of a stock photo catalog. Orlando, on the other hand? If you love having your seat kicked by a bored child, fly in or out of MCO. Flights in and out of El Paso are also like flying day care centers, thanks to las familias más grande.
The airlines need to fly with full flights to stay out of bankruptcy. Setting aside X number of seats for families for x more would probably results in:
[ul]
[li]Not enough families buying tickets, and empty seats due to non-child accompanied adults not being allowed there[/li][li]Families not willing to pay the difference in and just buying a normal ticket. This results in empty seats in the kids section, AND kids throughout the cabin.[/li][/ul]
In short it just isn’t going to work.
I mean no offense, but I’d like to point out that in the childfree community we use the term “sprog” as an invective. It’s a little startling to see a parent use it.
Nothing that a continent spanning series of child flinging trebuchets wouldn’t take care of.
I’ve flown in planes big enough that you could have a gang shooting in the back and not hear it.
That said, I’ve taken hundreds of flights all over North America and never encountered the armies of unbearable children everyone else claims are ruining air travel. Unless one’s tolerance level for kids is essentially “I don’t want to see or hear them ever,” flights aren’t really that bad.
I think this model might stand a chance in terms of charter flights for some key markets. For example, NY/NJ to Florida during peak Disney season, or El Paso (apparently lots of kids) to LA for Christmas. I’m thinking of a rough analogy to Hooters Air, a different attempt to market to people looking for a specific flying experience. If the airlines could tie it into a family-friendly trip through security, car rental/ hotel, they might be onto something.
I don’t think it’s viable to split planes unless the families are willing to pay a premium equivalent to first class fare.
Personally, I’d like to see planes made up as giant bouncy castles inside, with everyone dangling from the ceiling from bungee harnesses.
That I’d pay extra for!
Kids have only bothered me on a flight once. We took the redeye from Las Vegas to Columbus and there was a kid, about 3 years old, who screamed at the top of his lungs the whole time. I thought I would cry.
I think it’s a good idea in principle, but I wonder if there would really be enough demand for the airlines to justify it. As others have pointed out, it would probably result in empty seats that could have been filled otherwise, more often than not.
So as a child-free individual, yes, I’d love to be able to sign on for a flight that’s a designated child-free zone. I wouldn’t pay a premium for it though; that falls under me being resentful of being penalized for the choices that other people made. It’s not my kid, and therefore should not be, in any way, my problem.
Kids did not bother me before I had mine, don’t bother me after I had Mighty_Kid. They are a fact of life. They are generally well-behaved and the most difficult cases where of newborn babies that could not cope well with flying. My daughter is extremely well-behaved, that is because we carry enough things to entertain her on long flights, and try to pay our undivided attention to her.
You know what I pay a premium for? Being isolated from asshole grownups. Those are the ones that really bother me.
I am looking at you old lady who thought that the plane was a social area and needed to get out and in her seat every 2 minutes to visit people in other areas of the plane. It got so bad that one of the attendants had to intervene when even she noticed it.
I am looking at you stupid twat who poured 3 gallons of perfume on you for an overnight flight.
I am looking at you loud people arguing in the back. Get a divorce alright!
Etc…
Heh, this would suck ass, you’d have a section of screaming kids who would never stop screaming, because as soon as yours stopped the other kid would start and yours would start again. There would be no separation between children by distance and so all the children would be screaming all at once for the entire flight.
Agreed. I spent a very nice flight across the country in coach beside an 8-year-old and her mother. Before we took off, as I was sitting down, Mother pointed at me and instructed Child, “Now, this man is sharing a row with us, and we must not bother him.” And Child did not; she was as good as gold. Mother had brought along any number of quiet activities for Child, who occupied herself with them during the flight, and we all had an ageeable time. I have flown many times, and had many flights made less enjoyable unruly and loud children, but then I think of this flight. Mother had prepped Child for five hours of sitting in the middle of adults who didn’t want their seats kicked, who didn’t want to hear her rendition of a current pop song, or who didn’t want to have various toys land on them when something goes wrong. Good for Mother; I wish there were more who could prepare their children for the ordeal just as well.
As for the OP’s question, I don’t know if paying a premium and the other conditions in the OP would go over well with the public, regardless of which kind of traveller one is. Parents would feel penalized, single male travellers might get bumped for no other reason than the only seats left were in the family section (and that would bother me, I can tell you). But I have often wondered if a “children/no children” division, like it used to be “smoking/non-smoking,” might work. No premium fares, just reserve a seat in the area you’d like, and there you go. Your preferred area is full? Well you can go in the other, if you’d like. At least with a little advance warning like this, you know what you’re getting yourself into.
I will say that as I get older, I find myself flying more and more often in first/business class. There are various reasons for this, but among them are badly behaved and unruly children in coach. This is, I guess, how we do the children/no children division nowadays, since I’ve seen very few children in first/business class.
Really? It’s an Australian nickname, isn’t it? And totally harmless? 
Yeah, it’s totally harmless in the non child-hate community. 
Porch-monkey, I would have expected, but sprog?
Ah well, I imagine anything they call a kid becomes pejorative, right?
:rolleyes:
Probably so. There are people without children, then there is the childfree community, which is essentially code for a sort of age centric bigotry.