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Should Airlines Have Children-Only Sections on Planes?

Updated on: January 19, 2011 / 4:03 PM EST / MoneyWatch

Anyone who travels knows the famous line, there are two kinds of travel: first class and with children. That is no joke, either. Having spent much of my adult life in the air, I've noticed the following:

The longer the flight, the closer the screaming child is to you.
The bumpier the flight, the closer the screaming child is to throwing up on you
And of course, the one that all business travelers dread: No matter where you sit, there will be a child in the seat behind you, kicking the back of your seat for three and a half hours.

It's no wonder that there is a growing movement -- at least among frequent fliers -- to lobby the airlines to create children-only sections. A survey by the fare-comparison site Skyscanner found around 60% of travelers polled would be in favor of putting families with young children all in one section of the flight. On the surface, segregating young screamers seems like a wonderful idea. You could pre-board families with young kids and pre-assign seating in the last four rows of the plane.

But that's about as practical as segregating travelers who spent too much time at airport bars prior to boarding. What about business and first-class passengers traveling with their kids? Where do they go?

Also, it would be helpful to have additional crew to monitor family-only sections, but under current FAA rules, there is no mandate requiring airlines to board additional cabin crew based on the number of children on board.

Anyone who has traveled on a Saturday knows what I'm talking about -- it's the big day of the week for children of divorce to fly between sets of parents. Ouch! And believe me, they are definitely unaccompanied! And unsupervised.

The solution? The airlines need to plan more efficiently.

Pre-board families with kids. Give families enough time to get situated, organized and comfortable on the plane. In 2007, Southwest dropped its policy of allowing families with small children to pre-board. These days, legacy carriers like American and United have also backed away from this policy, opting instead to charge individuals an early boarding fee. Airlines should reverse this trend.
Designate certain child-only seats. Whenever possible, the airlines -- short of a special-seating section -- should reserve seats for children. My candidate? The bulkhead seats. Because when those kids want to kick (and they will), they can kick all they want into a wall, and not me or you!

And it would be wise for parents to do some planning, too. Don't feed your children excessive amounts of sugar prior to a flight; let your children be physically active before getting on the plane, and bring some
toys and games along--and plenty of snacks, too.

What do you think airlines--and parents--can do to make flights more pleasant for everyone?

Related:

Image by Flickr user Nezemnaya

Peter Greenberg

Peter Greenberg, CBS News' travel editor, reports regularly on a broad range of travel-related news. A multiple Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter and producer, Greenberg is the consummate insider when it comes to reporting the travel business as news.

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