I might enjoy overnight flights much more without babies and small kids.
They tried the TSA restrictor plate thing briefly in about 2003. It was a colossal failure.
The various airlines wanted to compete on the size of carryons they allowed and that led to arguments about what size the plate ought to be at different terminals at different airports.
But that was a minor sideshow compared to the real problem. …
A passenger stands in line for however long to get screened. Puts their shoes, purse, etc., through the x-ray tunnel, then their bag(s). One of which doesn’t fit. Now what? They’re supposed to just leave half their stuff on the secure side of the checkpoint, grab their oversized bag, walk in their socks back to the airline counter, stand in that line, check the bag (using what for ID? That’s back at the checkpoint), then return to security and stand in line again to get themselves screened.
Not gonna work even if you somehow let them shortcut both lines. You’ll just end up with two lines at bag check and at security: the long one of first timers, and a shorter second one of folks on their second pass through. Here’s hoping all the second time passengers were smart enough to try to put all their carryons through the restrictor plate the first time because there’s gonna be a meltdown if something else doesn’t fit.
To boot the TSA now needs to somehow safely hold onto a bunch of different people’s purses & shoes & ??? that did fit through the x-ray until they come back. You know how crowded that whole process is; How many more TSA agents will it take to collect, store for 10 to 30 minutes, and then re-distribute all that stuff. And how much stuff will accidentally or deliberately be carried off by somebody else?
And all the hate is directed at the TSA when they’re just enforcing an airline customer service policy intended to make some people a little happier by utterly infuriating a different group of passengers and perhaps making them miss their flight. On which flight their bags got shipped but they didn’t. IOW, creating a security hole when their mission is to close them.
Bottom line: not a really great idea. But I think you could make a pretty good Keystone Kops style vid using sped up security cam footage of this process with Yakkity Sax as the soundtrack. 
I’ve found children* to be less disturbing on flights than obnoxious adults (especially drunk ones).
(* Except for the very rare screaming baby – and they usually don’t have the stamina to scream all that long. It just seems like it.)
I don’t agree with the bolded part. If you get frozen shoulder, are recovering from abdominal surgery, or are simply on the short side, it may not be possible for you to put your own luggage in the overhead bin - even if you have conformed to reasonable size and weight restrictions.
I’ve sometimes needed help with placing my bag in the overhead bin, when I’ve been recovering from a shoulder injury or when I was just a bit weak for one reason or another. Fortunately I had only a brief period when I was in the “dumpy middle-aged lady that everyone ignores” stage – most of my life I’ve been in either the “cute young girl that brings out the chivalry in men” stage or the “old lady we should be nice to” stage. So I’ve always gotten help from kind fellow passengers. I’d hate to think of you glaring at me because I couldn’t manage my own bag.
Do you guys not have these? They have them over here - I can’t remember at exactly what point, but I’ve seen them all over the place. One time some guy claimed my carryon was too big and I had to check it, and I put the carryon in the box to show him that it fit.
The weird thing is that they don’t seem to make a difference. You get on the flight and all the overhead compartments are still full of steamer trunks.
Oh we have them. I have NEVER seen them used.
People don’t seem aware that the pressure changes give some babies severe ear aches. They don’t know the trick about swallowing - I don’t know how to fix it. And its sometimes not possible to live in isolation while your children are small, so you have to travel thus encumbered.
As enipla said. My employer has them at every gate at every airport in the system, both US & worldwide.
But the gate agents use them only sporadically. If it’s a 100% full flight AND a quick look around the gate area shows an unusually big mound of carry-on stuff, then they’ll start using it, and enforcing the 1+ purse/laptop bag rule. But only after first class & priority folks are on board with all their stuff regardless of size or quantity.
If it can all be crammed in the overheads and we start boarding early enough that last minute carryon games don’t cause a delay, there’s no advantage to anyone to enforce the limits. Confiscating & checking somebody’s bag is more work for the airline and is less pleasant (& slower on arrival) for each customer whose bag is gate-checked. Enforcing lose-lose rules just for consistency’s sake is bovine stupid behavior. So we don’t so it. By design & policy.
There is also the psychological aspect of it. This is a tragedy of the commons situation. Your bags *do *fit. It’s just that they *don’t *fit with everybody else’s too. Telling you in advance, before you’ve seen the evidence with your own eyes in the cabin turns the encounter into a test of wills. You’re being singled out for inconvenience and victimization to make other people’s journey easier. That doesn’t make people happy. At all.
Conversely, getting on board and discovering for yourself that A) your bag it too thick to go into the overhead at all, or B) since you’re in boarding group 13 all the overhead space is already taken means that you’re confronted with a problem of physics: two things don’t go in one space. This you can’t fix by whining; only by grudgingly complying and bringing your bag back out to the aircraft door to be gate-checked. While whining.
The only thing this costs is time. With unselfish disciplined motivated able-bodied professional attention-paying passengers we can fill or empty a typical narrow-body aircraft in 10 minutes flat. With the actual crowd we’ve got it takes 30 to fill and 15 to empty.
It also takes longer to drive someplace when there are other cars on the road. That’s just the way it is.
I think airplanes need designated Tall People seats.
Then Spirit Airlines is the carrier for you (Og help you): the basic fare only includes one small bag that MUST fit under your seat. A standard carry-on that fits in the overhead bin costs between $35 and $100 (depending on when you pay for it; the high end is paying at the gate), with similar prices for the first checked bag. The low end of the price range goes up for the second checked bag, and is even higher ($85 each!!!) for the third and beyond. The good news is that there’s no extra charge for the reportedly rude and unhelpful Spirit staff.
Yes, check out Blackjet.com or Jetsmarter.com if you’re willing to pay a premium to avoid travelling with the riff-raff. (Well, the poor riff-raff, at least. You might get stuck on a bizjet with some rich riff-raff.) Here’s a NYT storyabout these services.
I mostly fly Southwest, so I’ve not encountered this trend. But leg room isn’t really my beef - it’s being at close quarters with some stranger. I’d pay more for more seat width. When it’s just my son and me flying together, I’m good with paying for a third seat so we don’t have to share the row.
I’d be OK with this solution too.
How about United’s Men Only flight in the 50s and 60s?
http://www.airlineratings.com/news.php?id=152
Laurie Notaro, an extremely gifted humor writer, proposes “normal people flights” and “shithouse crazy people flights.” I can’t remember which book this chapter is in, but any of her books are well worth reading.
I don’t mind kids much, I’ve found that adults are more irritating for the reasons cited upthread. Give me a fussy baby over the ratass guy watching hardcore porn on his phone and not even trying to hide it.
There is some room (heh) for this to actually come to pass aboard widebody long-haul airplanes. Not that it will, just that it’s not impossible.
In narrow-body aircraft with 6 abreast, removing one seat means at least an 18% reduction in seat count. Which means a 18% price increase is the minimum to pull that seat out to give more width to the remaining seats.
The economics are even worse on RJs with 3 or 4 abreast.
The only way we get wide seats on narrow-bodies is if somehow Congress passes some ADA-like law that requires the airlines to have two or 3 rows of big-people seats available for the narrowness-challenged. Then the fun really starts.
They’re a premium product that even non-wide folks would pay extra for (e.g. you), but the law would doubtless require accommodation for the big folks at no extra charge. So if you’re bigger than some super-sized standard, the super-sized seats are yours at no extra charge. But if you’re smaller and they’re not already taken for big folks, you can still buy one for a proportionate (or greater depending on demand) extra charge.
So we can expect to see passengers bragging about how huge they are and overstating their weight or girth, rather than the opposite fibbing we have now. 
I flew once where some little bastard started hitting me because I had the window shade down. The mother did nothing.
In speaking of international flights, it normally takes around 30 hours from here to Europe including flight changes and Immigration/ Customs. Babies and children I try and avoid by selecting seats away from change tables etc. However, there are many other types of arseholes who can be as difficult to endure- once from Singapore to London some older lady stretched out over 4 seats in the middle row opposite us and snored loudly for the whole trip. I didn’t even know a person could sleep that long (14 hours). And the pricks who want to bring on 14 tons of cabin baggage.
So, children aren’t the only issue. I wouldn’t pay extra for an adult only flight because of this.
I would prefer this to standard economy seating.
Until you ran into turbulence.
I have never experienced significant turbulence on a flight. I’ll take my chances :).