[Airtravel104]

As for Virgin: You are asking for it to fly them. We have found our first class experience with them unbearably amateurish and reminded us of “Little Britain.” I have to say that the ground crew in London for First Class was savvy and fun. I think they take all the rejects from BA for their cabin crew. On the flight we took the cabin was garish and they featured a chair massage where the pretty girl merely taped her fingers on my shoulders. I said to her, “Would you quit dancing around and get with it!”

[Potakas]

First Class on Virgin?

[lloydah]

Binman62
I think we may all agree with you to a certain extent but the other side of the coin is “do you simply put up with the selfish “non behaviour” of the adult in charge?” Why did the kid shut up after that incident? Parent took charge at last. Maybe if the crew had had a quiet word earlier or if the parent had taken some responsibility, it wouldn’t have got that far. Spoilt kids don’ t grow on trees, they are the product of their upbringing. I have some sympathy for anyone who has to put up with the kind of behaviour dinosaur encountered.

[Binman62]

lloydah….I think it was great deal more telling that no one backed him up!.
I have been there, screaming child, utterly our of control and completly out of charecter, then suddenly nothing. It is awful being a parent in those circumstances. The last thing you need is some boor making the situation worse..
This is not an excuse for bad behaviour from kids or parents or from boorish passengers who in my experience far exceed problems kids by a factor of 10.

It is public transport, get life…. or get a private jet.

[dutchyankee]

Binman62, I agree with you that there are far more boorish, arrogant, spoilt wannabes flying in Premium Cabins on company expenses who are obnoxious and rude to crew than misbehaving children. But rarely are they as disturbing to other passengers as a misbehaving, screaming child. That said, a misbehaving child is the responsibility of the parent, and the parent should be held accountable. Whilst it is public transport, I certainly would expect and demand action by the crew and definitely by the parent to control an unruly child. I too have sympathy for a parent with an infant that cries due to the air pressure or other issues, but the story from Dinosaur seems to be more of an issue with a child, not a baby or infant, and the parent should be able to control such a situation. If not, they should not be allowed on the plane. Did his rant to the parent go too far, probably, but it did get a result!

[MartynSinclair]

Dinosaur – perhaps you should certainly reconsider whether you were sitting in a public place. I would suggest that there are not many 6000 dollar or sterling pubic places.

I would suggest you were sharing a very private and privileged place with fellow passengers. Screaming children should not be dealt with by an abussive adult!

[TiredOldHack]

“I would suggest that there are not many 6000 dollar or sterling pubic places.”

Um, ask Berlusconi….

[MartynSinclair]

i think we are talking about different kinds of “old birds”.

[FlyingChinaman]

Travellers:

This is one of the most heated debates on BT. A very difficult topic to discuss as we all have different views.

NOBODY welcome excessive noises from baby/kids or adults in ANY cabin! The heading of this thread has sown the seed for this argument. Why? Rightly or wrongly travellers in premium class tend to associate and expect a quiet heaven in their travel cabins as have firmly believed that they (or their company) have paid for this priveledge.

As some of you have pointed out that a commerical flight is a form of public transport. However it is also the duty of adult parents to “manage” their baby/kids so as not to cause excessive disturbance to the other fellow passengers in this PUBLIC mode of transport since nobody owns it. The cabin crew should really do a little more to ease the tension in such situation but their power is limited.

The best thing is to approach and talk to these parents face-to-face and showing some sympathy towards them. At the same time expressing your desire of wanting to have some peace and quiet. They would certainly do something If these are reasonal parents.

If all that fails, you can execise what ever your consider fit to display your displeasure towards these inconsiderate people. (Nothing illegal as you don’t want to be arrested for an air rage passenger!!!).

Personally I have secret weapon. I took a vocal class for a Peking Opera singing (very high pitch) and paid good money for it but have not practice since. It might just come into handy.

I may be have to rename myself as the SingingChinaman next!!!

May your travel world be a peaceful one! (pun intended)

[Binman62]

FlyingChinaman. This is indeed one of the most heated debates and rightly so. Of course parents must control the kids but they are only kids and we should not, and must not expect them to be little adults sitting in silence for extended periods of time, no matter what the class. I will not accept bad behaviour from my kids and never have, but neither I am going to subdue a child’s exuberance or natural instincts.

Part of the issue is the awful service from most airlines, they simply do not know how to deal with children. The child meals are generally rubbish and would not be found on a school lunch menu. In-flight entertainment is vital yet which airline provides child size headphones in any class.

If you have ever had a kids bag from BA or Qantas they are simply crap….Cathay had a good one a few years back but that lasted months.

I fly with BA, generally in First and whilst it is great for me, the crew seem incapable of recognising that a 6 year does not want or need table clothes, little salt and pepper mills and glasses they cannot hold.
They want an IFE system that works, with games they can identify with and a headset that does not slip off. Some first runs kids movies would be great along with a screen that can be viewed and has been cleaned recently.

I want to know the crew will automatically impose a viewing restriction to prevent access to adult content and that a childs food tastes can be met, especially in First and Club.

Bottom line is that unless airlines do something to entertain and divert attention of children then they child will become curious, restless and ultimately bored. They do not have the same ability to divert into an alcoholic haze as so many adults do.

The whole experience of flying with kids can be pretty daunting, we all know how frustrating and difficult it can be to get through an airport when on our own. For someone travelling with young children this is magnified and they have all the additional concerns of getting feed, strollers and the rest of paraphernalia on to a plane without losing the kids!. For most parents there is also the worry of how our offspring will behave and this adds to the stress and kids spot this.

Parents and kids need a great deal more service and assistance and it surely cannot be beyond the wit of the marketing departments to come up with a product to deal with kids 0-15.

What they do not need is, as MartynSinclair stated, some abusive adult screaming at them. You would not accept this on the ground or in their school ( people get sacked for less) and I for one am not prepared to accept it from some obnoxious boor on public transport.

When was the last time you were pushed out of the way by a kid seated 5 rows behind you when getting off a plane?

[SimonRowberry]

Binman,

I totally and wholeheartedly agree with you. An excellent post which brought a great deal of perspective to the issue. Thank you.

I think that dinosaur’s actions were crass and probably ultimately counter-productive. He’s lucky not have got a slap from the (evidently) ignorant parents into the bargain. I also agree with all who have said that “it’s the parents’ fault.” Of course it is. However, “you can take a horse to water…” (or as a colleague of mine memorably once said “You can take a whore to Chaucer, but you can’t make her think.”).

I also agree re the quality of kids’ meals. SK seem to think an acceptable kids’ meal in Europe is a cold salad, a kit kat and (in summer) an ice-cream (this is on a Business Class fare that is 90% of my fare). Crap, as Binman says. It doesn’t get much better on long-haul (although AY, LX and LH make more of an effort).

On one of my last trips in J-class with my (now 11-year old) son, he was somewhat bemused to be given a colouring kit by the Flight Attendant…..(I can’t remember the airline but I think it was LH). He’s now much more at home finding a quiet corner in the Senator Lounge, getting a glass of lemonade and settling down to quietly play his Nintendo DS (with the sound turned off, natch). That’s if he can concentrate given the loud, boorish, self-important businessmen shouting down their mobile phones who are inevitably sitting all around him. The same ignorant, stupid prats that look down their noses at a quiet, well-behaved child who, in their perverse and twisted opinion, has no right to be in the Lounge in the first place.

Regards,

Simon

[FlyingChinaman]

Binman:

Was it part of your been there and done that experience travelling with your kids!!

Putting the joke aside, you are rightly in pointing out that most airlines have not done much about keeping kids “entertained” in flight. I guess they all are only concentrating on adult BUSINESS travellers that the kids are overlooked somehow.

I still feel it is very important to communicate with parents travellng with young children when there is a noise issue and most decent parents would try their best to smooth their unsettled younger children, the best way they can.

An openner like “it must be very hard for you travelling with your baby/kid(s)!. I hope I’ll be able to get some sleep!” will often work as no reasonal person would want to disturb the others unduly.

I must say I have been very lucky with my frequent travels and have had few problems. Perhaps one or twice non-stop noisy baby/kids in the last 10 years!

Last week I had a lovely American family of 5 (parents with girl twins and an older boy) travelling very near me in Business and the twins only cried for a few minutes twice on an 10 hour flight! I have even talked to the mother before take off and played with the girls on occasions. Obnoxious kids are a minority but to the kiddy-intolerance passengers then it is just one too many!!!

[SimonRowberry]

Hi FC,

I think your approach has a lot of merit. I also don’t think you’re quite as “kiddy-intolerant” as you’d like us to think! 😉

All the best,

Simon

[FlyingChinaman]

I like kids but obviously prefer not to have excess noise while trying to rest/sleep in-flight (who would!) but I also reckon there are times willing parents are unable to do anything and I accept that is a normal behavour of children travelling in a public environment.

I recall many of the angry eaders were opposed to irresponsible/unreasonable parants not attempting anything during a stressful situation which is a different kettle of fish all together!

Lastly I tend to dramatize things a bit such as my Peking Opera singing but it makes good reading!!!

[SimonRowberry]

It certainly does, FC.

S

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