Dilemma: Child-free zone on flights
<p>Like a great many people I flew abroad on holiday this year at an uncivilised hour, cursing my miserliness. In darkest February it made prudent sense to book the cheapest 5am flights to and from Greece.</p>
<p>Scroll forward to August, and rousing bleary-eyed children out of bed at 1am, half-dressing and hustling them into a cab seemed the height of penny-pinching insanity. "Stop sobbing with exhaustion," I told the weepy seven-year-old or maybe it was my husband.</p>
<p>"We can always sleep on the plane, despite our cheapskate airline's best efforts to make their stripped-down seats substantially less inviting than Old Sparky."</p>
<p>So we boarded, strapped ourselves in and I nodded off to the sound of loud crying. Did I say loud? I meant ear-splitting. No, make that atom-splitting.</p>
<p>Only another parent can understand how this is possible, but once I'd established said crying wasn't emanating from anyone in my family, ergo not my problem, I switched off. Just like that. Don't hate me.</p>
<p>I drifted blissfully away feeling nothing more than a vague sense of there-but-for-the-grace-of-God sympathy for Some Other Poor Mother, hushing and shushing, pacing and apologising. We've all been there, deflecting the slings and arrows of outraged passengers who regard a crying baby as an infringement of their human rights.</p>
<p>Just this week, mother-of-four Nicola Colenso posted details of an on-board altercation with a fellow traveller who shouted "Shut that child up" when her very obviously disabled eight-year-old daughter, Yasmin, was wailing in distress.</p>
<p>Yet the passenger, a woman in her twenties continued to harangue the parents and scream at the girl, who was taken to hospital after disembarkation.</p>
<p><em><img width="496" height="280" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/28145/child-free-airlines_496x280.jpg" alt="Child -free -airlines" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"/></em></p>
<p><em>Image credit: Facebook / Nicola Colenso</em></p>
<p>The post - and photograph - of the offending, offensive traveller have since gone viral. While few would actively engage in a fracas, there is an alarming groundswell of opinion that all children are a nuisance on flights.</p>
<p>Eamonn Holmes, presenter of This Morning and a father of four, then sparked controversy by complaining that he "hates" being seated next to a child on a plane and he is all in favour of child-free zones and entire flights so he can sleep or grumble in peace.</p>
<p>Personally I'd be happy to pay a premium not to sit next to a grumpy telly presenter. And I have no doubt there probably is moolah to be made from charging curmugeons top dollar to fly free of children, but - sorry to sound like the sort of prol who has to turn right on a plane - isn't that why business class was invented?</p>
<p>Anyway, a survey in 2014 by the booking website LateDeals.co.uk revealed that 70 per cent of people would like to see child-free areas introduced in planes. This would take the form of compartments on long-haul flights and presumably for short hops staff would just pop the babies in the hold.</p>
<p>It might make for a quiet night but it would be polarising. In recent years a schism the size of the San Andreas Fault has developed between those with and those without children. There's deep frustration over "family-friendly" working practices that discriminate against the child-free and growing calls for "me-ternity" leave, so those who don't have a baby can pursue what they see as equally legitimate life goals.</p>
<p>Even making polite allowances for children has become a rarity; this year the Mortimore family from Exeter was ordered off a plane after passengers refused to move seats so the children could sit with an adult, as is the requirement. The carrier EasyJet gave them a full holiday refund plus extras, but I can't help wondering how a planeful of people could have been so bloody-minded and heartless.</p>
<p>I once boarded a flight where seats weren't allocated, carrying my younger daughter who must have been about three years old. As I stood around waiting for help, the flight attendant eventually had the brass neck to tell me that there was no seats left together.</p>
<p>Did I shout? Did I kick up an unholy fuss? Did I go begging round the aisles for someone to bunch up? No I did not.</p>
<p>I beamed in fake delight, held my by now shrieking daughter aloft and said "Lovely. Now could you please explain to her why she can't sit next to her mummy?"</p>
<p>As if by magic, two seats were found. One passenger was visibly disgruntled at having to move, but four years on, I'm sure she's got over it, the mean old boot.</p>
<p>There's something about air travel that brings out pettiness in people and prompts them to lose their social inhibitions, as attested by the Facebook passenger shaming page, which is full of unspeakable activities and well worth a look if you've ever feeling misanthropic and have a phobia about stranger's feet.</p>
<p>As for air rage, it's on the rise, but interestingly it isn't brought about by mewling infants but economic segregation. According to a piece I recently read in The Economist (while travelling steerage), Harvard Business School has discovered that economy travellers are four times more likely to throw a tantrum if there's a first class cabin on board.</p>
<p>A total of 84 per cent of incidents happen in the cheap seats - another reason why child-free compartments are not a good idea. If Joe Public gets tetchy at the sight of privileged people drinking Champagne at 35,000 feet, imagine how cross we'll feel seeing smug-faced Eamonn Holmes snoozing away in his soundproofed sleeping pod?</p>
<p>What’s your take? Do you think it’s time to introduce a child-free zone on airplanes? Share your thoughts in the comments section, we’d love to hear from you.</p>
<p><em>Written by Judith Woods. First appeared on <a href="http://Stuff.co.nz" target="_blank"><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Stuff.co.nz</span></strong></a>.</em></p>
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