Time for adult only flights

LilElvis

I don't see how airlines are going to be able to provide "child free" flights on routes where they only run one or two flights a day, as is typical with long haul. These flights are full of business people, tourists, families, expats going "home" - how happy would any of these groups be if they could only fly on designated days of the week?

redmalc

I recently travelled First Class to Montego Bay and to my astonishment there was eight young children under five years of age in the cabin

meer53

For me, the sound of children, whether crying or laughing is a delight. I don't understand why people can't just accept that small children find it hard to grasp the concept of being quiet so they don't annoy grumpy and miserable adults. It's a flight FGS, it's not for the rest of your life. Is it really such a big deal ? Even on long haul flights i would dispute the fact that any child would make constant noise for the whole of the flight. Some people just exaggerate.

It's life, a crying child isn't going to cause any long lasting damage, to anyone.

Andypandyboy

fed_up_and_stressed wrote: »

Very few people *need* to take kids on flights ..its usually a choice

A "choice" that many people with family spread across the world "need" to make if they are to have any kind of extended family knowledge. My parents live half a world away, my other half's parents live the same distance away, my siblings (of varying ages and so that means they have children of varying ages) and theirs (ditto) are in different places again. If none of us took flights with babies or young children we would never see any of those people. Our children would missout big time.

So, maybe those who are childfree place no value on familial relations but many of us do.

MCGONIS

peachyprice wrote: »

You think they only put people who have bought those packages on the flight? Of course they don't, everyone going to the same destination, regardless of which package they bought, will be on the same flight, the '2twentys'/'Club 18-30' experience starts when you arrive.

TBH, I'd rather be on a flight with a screaming 2yo than a group of drunken twenty somethings, at least the 2yo doesn't know any better.

It was said tongue to cheek.

I was hoping the OP would maybe understand that nobody is ever happy on an aircraft. Drunken 18 through to 20 somethings, or a 2 year old brat....

I don't need to know how an aircraft in filled. You are stating the obvious..... And missed the tongue to cheek

paddyrg

There is another option, chartering a flight. Having looked deeply into it for a former pop star to get to a gig, it's only a few times dearer than first class. Otherwise we have to share with other people, and some of those will be not be on the approved ages list.

Could the 10 kids on a jumbo actually represent 30+ adults worth of business, lost by refusing them? Is the price of (say) 30 lost sales enough to offset the £8.33 you refer to?

I do actually sympathise with the op in that I've had some miserable flights made worse by having kids compounding things, yet I was dreading my last flight from Prague when the little girl sat next to me, and was as good as gold throughout. I had less patience and manners than she did. Sweeping generalisations don't really help.

ThumbRemote

Nick_C wrote: »

1) On your recent journey, the airline took £2000 instead of £2050 for three people. An average loss of revenue of £8.33 per passenger. If the plane was full of families of that size, the airline lost £1690 on each one way flight, compared to a plane full of adults.

Now to someone who doesn't understand the airline business, £8.33 per passenger may not sound like much. However, BA's pre tax profit last year was £300m, and they carried around 38m passengers. So when they are only making a profit of £7.90 per passenger, the loss of revenue for carrying children instead of adults is considerable.

You've not taken into account the fuel saving for carrying a small child instead of a full grown adult.

haras_nosirrah

Maybe the airlines can make a child free flight to a destination one day a week e.g on a Tuesday at 6am the flight to wherever will be child free and each popular destination can have one child free flight a week. After all it is not as though single people are constrained by school holidays and by making it stupidly early in the morning you are less likely to have a flight people with young kids would go for. Maybe it could be something to be trialled by a big airline

haras_nosirrah

Maybe the airlines can make a child free flight to a destination one day a week e.g on a Tuesday at 6am the flight to wherever will be child free and each popular destination can have one child free flight a week. After all it is not as though childless people are constrained by school holidays and by making it stupidly early in the morning you are less likely to have a flight people with young kids would go for. Maybe it could be something to be trialled by a big airline

Pollycat

haras_nosirrah wrote: »

Maybe the airlines can make a child free flight to a destination one day a week e.g on a Tuesday at 6am the flight to wherever will be child free and each popular destination can have one child free flight a week. After all it is not as though childless people are constrained by school holidays and by making it stupidly early in the morning you are less likely to have a flight people with young kids would go for. Maybe it could be something to be trialled by a big airline

But what will happen if those childfree adults can't actually travel on a Tuesday at 6am (or whatever time/date the flight operates)?

The plane will operate half-full, making a loss so at best any such trial would be short-lived.

I agree that childfree people aren't constrained by school holidays but they are almost certainly constrained by other factors, such as work holiday rules that only allow a certain number of people off at the same time.

Here's an alternative suggestion:
show a little tolerance to your fellow passengers, regardless of age.