[briansalter]

Age_Of_Reason is absolutely right – but a lack of a business seat booking would hurt the airline more than just a letter, which I suspect would just get filed in the normal place. incidentally, travelling oin Air France last week yet another horrid brat was tearing up and down the Economy aisle. As I was sitting very close to the economy/business class divide, I “diverted” said brat into the business section from where within three minutes a flustered stewardess returned the brat to its parents. Maybe the knock on from that should be that passengers in Business should divert brats into First class and those misbehaving in First class should be frog marched right to the back of Economy and handed over to one of the cabin crew there for action. The problem with middle eastern airlines is that most cabin crew – the majority of whom are recruited from Asia – would never so much as dare challenge the passengers for fear of losing their jobs. In Europe the cabin crew are less intimidated by the passengers!

[MCGHK34]

On many occasions we choose to fliy business class, and on some occasions we have been unfortunate to endure the experience of unruly children, willingly not being kept in control by their parents whilst they are lying back, reclining on their seat, enjoying the perks of the premium class, leaving youngster left alone to occupy themselves accordingly.

I am a teacher and am incredibly used to dealing with children of all ages, abilities, strenghts, weaknesses, challenges and learning needs and no stranger to dealing with parents too. And quite simply, the control of the children lies with the parents. Society now seems to dictate we live in a blameless, live free world and everything is always someone elses problem… hence why so many of us now do experience trying and frustrating experiences. Flying and children on flights is now a hundred times more common, there are some incredible deals available for premium classes, business paying for whole families to relocate and issuing premium tickets for the whole family, therefore it is a natural progression that we are seeing more and more children coming into premium classes.

Like most, I think we all have our fare share of experiences – a few detailed below of both positive and negatives!

Positives first! Virgin – Upper Class Hong Kong to Sydney – two screaming toddlers in the lounge, running riot, right up to the point of embarking and running riot down the jetty, only with their Dad (struggling to keep them in control as he was on his own). Hoping and praying they were heading to Premium Economy – oh no, Upper Class they go – a seat each. But to the travelling passengers surprise, they changed into the pyjamas, settled into their seat that was 10 times their size, they settled down and slept, causing no problem at all – even when they woke up… So all credit to them and their Dad.

Virgn – Syndey to Hong Kong, Premium Economy – the return journey! A UK family, older parents with a young son of around age 9/10 – they doted on him to their best, he treated his parents like dirt, physically hitting them in anger and veryablly abusing them…. The mother tolerated this and tried to appease her son as best possible… Didn’t really work. I was sittiing directly across from him… Teacher-mode kicks in and indirectly loudly say to my partner “I cannot believe how digustingly evil, unkind and unpleasant this creature of a child is – he should be thoroughly ashamed of his disrepctful, cruel and unkind behaviour to his mother”…. this combined with a piercing look in his direction, made him crumble, slightly whimper and put an aspect of balance, discipline and respect back in his soul for the remainder of the flight. Job well done!

Emirates – Dubai-Hong Kong. Large business orinetated Arab family travelling, two parents, three children and a maid/helper. Children generally ok but resltess for the flight, parents ignoring them, maid in economy occasionally coming through to assist, although Flight Attendants, largely doing the job. An hour out of HK, due to land, Typhoon 9 (severe, enough to shut down Hong Kong businesses and schools etc), plane hits severe turbulence and is in a major storm. An older son of the family refuses to put his belt on after several requests. Purser then speaks to father who relinquishes all responsibility, he is then read the legal acts of compliance etc etc etc. Plane attempts to land, moments before landing, the son removes his seat belt and attempts to walk down the plane – Purser has to scream at the boy to gain control and safety…

Malaysian Airlines – Kuala Lumpur to Hong Kong. Parent with child, child allowed to freely roam round the cabin distrubing other passengers by climbing up on chairs and kicking the backs of chairs… Parent does nothing…

I agree with the comment and story of a US Flight Attendant who’s hand onhand experience of these situations… ultimately, regardless of class, cabin, adult or child, there is a standard of polite, courteous, safe and considerate behaviour expected from ALL passengers to ensure our journeys are safe, comfortable, enjoyable and pleasant.

[IvaTicket]

If parents let their kids into business class then they should be parents instead of letting cabin crew sort out their little brats and be prepared to put up with spoilt teenagers and snooty young adults as their kids grow up thinking they are something special. Ridiculous to think there are fully grown adults who do cram themselves into economy while spoilt little rich kids’ feet barely touch the ground in business.

[Potakas]

Seems lufthansa thought the lounges:

http://www.lufthansa.com/mediapool/pdf/05/media_843005.pdf

Potakas

[SimonRowberry]

Hi Potakas,

Thanks for letting me know about this.

My immediate response is “Oh bugger. Now I’ll come under pressure from my 10-year old to fly Lufty all the time…..!”

Regards, Simon

[robsmith100]

You can minimise the effects of children flying by not flying on weekends and during holiday seasons. I am still very surprised with advances in IFE on planes especially on log haul flights that this topic is still an issue. All passengers have access to a wide range of services including movies, cartoons, children’s activity packs & video games. On top of that most children also travel with their own ipods, portable games consoles, books etc. Parents should ensure they pack appropriate provisions as to entertain their children and not to disturb other flyers.

Airlines should ban people running onboard aircraft on the grounds of health and safety. Where parents continually disregard their fellow passengers by allowing children to continually be a nuisance and make no attempt to ease this issue or apologies to other travellers. All these passengers should be then blacklisted for a minimum3 years. And names of passengers shared with other airlines.

BA has it right by not allowing children under the age of 12 not to fly in First.

Regardless of which class of cabin people fly all passengers should observe sensible etiquette and take responsibility for their actions and those of their minors.

[whatseconomy]

I totally agree with BA – no kids under 12 in F class and try and do the same in Business. I only wish my mother was still around her withering look out of horn rimmed specs made you take notice and do as you were told.
In my partners experience and mine the worst ‘families’ are expats working in the Gulf. Qatar Airways do not tolerate bad behaviour and that is why we use them. Our worst experience was on Emirates, we flew business to Mauritius via DXB on the return DXB-LHR leg my partners and mother sat in the 2 seats on the left of the cabin – i had one seat in the middle 3 across the aisle, just after boarding a typical ex pat brit, his wife and child (about 2 year old) boarded, they had not bought a seat for the kid and wasked the cabin attendant if I could be moved so the kid could have a seat. The cabin was full so no joy. Thats when the mother and kid made the flight miserable, during lunch she insisted on breast feeding the kid and then changing the nappy on the seat next to me. When Ii objected as i was still eating i was told – get a life i will do what i want. When i complained to the purser he shrugged his shoulders and said what could he do.

The combination of non affective cabin crew and idiot parents was a recipe for disaster.

Dont get me wrong my god daughters are angels when we take them on holiday, and yes we pay for J class for them, I was also an ex pat working in the Gulf in the 80s and would never have treated other pax and crew like this family did.

Children should be ‘seen and not heard’ as mother used to say – how true.

[Flytoomuch]

whatseconomy,

Sorry to burst your bubble, but BA do allow infants and children in F (as so they should).

Someone changing a nappy next to you, when there’s facilities in the toilet (I assume, I’ve never flown Emirates), is out of order. But it sounds like the mother was the problem, not the kid.

I don’t see your point about breastfeeding though. You do realise that that’s natural right? Did she offer you some – is that the issue?

[SimonRowberry]

Flytoomuch – nice one!

Whatseconomy – yes, your gripes, many of which were justifiable, related wholly to the parents, not the kids.

I’ll reiterate what I’ve said before: in most cases (indeed ALL cases in my personal and extensive experience) the problem is the adult, not the child. I found your comments about kids to be facile, simplistic and too all-embracing. Sorry.

Simon

[SimonRowberry]

Rob – have you ever thought of working for a right-wing junta? Your ideas would probably chime well with such a regime ; )

[ChesterSimons]

I too would feel extremely uncomfortable if I was sitting next to a lady breast feeding her child whilst i was eating my lunch within the confines of economy or business class.

This has nothing to do with being prudish or wishing to discriminate between the sexes, it has to do with common decency and understanding between fellow passengers.

[Flytoomuch]

“This has nothing to do with being prudish or wishing to discriminate between the sexes…”

How else would you describe it? Surely the child has a right to be fed as well?

[Binman62]

BA and to my knowledge all airlines allow kids in F. BA prevent their own staffs children, including directors, from using the F cabin. Not sure what it achieves as they all travel on a space available basis.
It harks back to a very old fashioned way of thinking which also included staff having to wear suits when traveling, even when on holiday. The latter rule was abolished some years ago but the ban on kids 12 and under has remained.
As for breast feeding, well I cannot think of a better way to sooth a tired and fractious infant or a more natural activity. In my experience most women would do so discreetly and I for one would object to them being banished to toilets. That is simply Dickensian and has no place in the modern world.

[craigwatson]

whatseconomy – what a load of tosh! if the breastfeeding was bothing you so much, put the divider up, and you would not have even known! As for changing the baby, there I may agree with you, that is out of order ( there are perfectly good changing facilties in the loo’s) but again that is the mothers fault not the babies. We flew LHR-DXB-JNB return with a 4 month old. Cabin was empty on way out, so no issues, but fairly full on the return, the person sitting next to us took one look at us and moved seats to the rear of business near economy… I giggled to myself when for most of the flight i could hear a child sceaming in economy just behind him. In the immigration queue the girls sitting in the row behind us noticed our daughter and where amazed as they had not even realized there was a baby in front of them.

[craigwatson]

whatseconomy – what a load of tosh! if the breastfeeding was bothing you so much, put the divider up, and you would not have even known! As for changing the baby, there I may agree with you, that is out of order ( there are perfectly good changing facilties in the loo’s) but again that is the mothers fault not the babies. We flew LHR-DXB-JNB return with a 4 month old. Cabin was empty on way out, so no issues, but fairly full on the return, the person sitting next to us took one look at us and moved seats to the rear of business near economy… I giggled to myself when for most of the flight i could hear a child sceaming in economy just behind him. In the immigration queue the girls sitting in the row behind us noticed our daughter and where amazed as they had not even realized there was a baby in front of them.

[Author]

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