Honestly, I will never wrap my head around how people can happily bring infants on any flight where you can expect people to try and sleep, it’s incredibly lucky if they don’t spend some of it screaming their heads off—I would be mortified if my choices were preventing hundreds of people from sleeping. But I’m not going to rant too hard about that.
Why on earth hasn’t any airline started marketing adult-only flights?
It seems like a complete no brainer to me, I would choose it every time and pay extra for it.
Disclaimer: I may or may not be on a 36h day with only an hour of sleep right now
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I have kids and when I took them on trips when they were little, I would book the most direct option. I didn’t consider the option where I could inconvenience the most entitled people.
I’ll never get why people get so worked up by babies crying on airplanes. The kids parents are just trying to get somewhere, same as everyone else. The plane is not your bedroom, or office, theater, or library. You know what you’re getting into when you board. You’re going to be in close quarters with strangers. Some of them might be kids that cry, some might be so old or weak that they have trouble stuffing their oversized carry on into the overhead bin. The difference is the weak person could have chosen to check the bag. Can you tell what my flying pet annoyance is? You just never know what you’re gonna get.
Like someone already said, the airlines don’t do it bc there’s no money in it.
If you’re an adult who doesn’t have or don’t work around children it’s hard to overstate how irritating they are. The noise, lack of self-awareness, the energy, the stickiness, and you have to censor yourself around them. Additionally, they’re way harder to reason with (if they even can communicate) and parents are notoriously shitty and self-righteous. Finally adults have consequences. If an adult screams their head off, runs up and down the aisles, or hit people around them then flight attendants can do something
You also act like that child HAS to be on that plane. You can drive, you could leave the kid with someone else, you could take a train, a bus, or you could just not go. We know planes specifically are really uncomfortable for babies because of the pressure. You chose to have a kid presumably knowing that you’d be making sacrifices for them. Maybe one of those sacrifices should be flying until they’re old enough to behave
I don’t mind kids on planes. They can be loud or obnoxious but adults can be worse, so whatever. If you have such a problem, you can drive, take a train or just not go, you know?
I’m an adult with adult responsibilities and obligations. Occasionally I do have to be on a plane. That child’s presence is almost certainly not required somewhere with such urgency that they simply must be on a plane. Also I can and do behave myself so I don’t need to be justified. Babies usually can’t and don’t, which is why we’re having this conversation in the first place
We need a travel justification board so only truly necessary air travel is authorized and approved. Nein. No babiez on ze plane
Consider it the price you pay for travel freedom.
Maybe let’s chill on comparing people who don’t want to be annoyed by babies on airplanes to nazis?
Yeah, fair. German speaking people however do seem to love processes and rules. I wasn’t actually thinking of Nazis, just the German stereotypes.
We can leave the child’s travel urgency and behaviour out of this, I think. Kids don’t decide to travel on a plane, and they behave how they do. This is really about the parents. They are the ones taking their children on planes. So, they are adults with responsibilities and obligations which includes caring for their children and usually that means bringing them with them on planes.
Same. I’ve flown more than most, sometimes with screaming kids nearby. Normally I don’t mind beyond the extra noise, provided that I’m well rested. The times when getting proper rest onboard is important, I book business class, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen kids in there.
I’ve had one instance of a baby in business class. Was flying from Johannesburg to London for work, so was lucky enough that work policy allowed business class for a flight of that length. Someone had a baby with them also in business and that kid screamed non stop virtually the entire flight. Was a lot of unhappy people when we landed.
Was an overnight flight too so the expectation was that everyone would sleep the majority of the trip. Nope.
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This is patently rediculous. Babies exist. They cry. They will be out in the public space. I personally think people should not have babies at this point in history but they do, they will, and thinking its entitlement that people with kids will have them with them is again, redic.
Fuck off. OP wanted a way to avoid children while traveling on a public mode of transport. There’s no box to tick to make that happen. Children and parents have the same rights to make use of air travel as anyone else. Tough shit. Kids exist. You were once one, maybe still are.
We share this planet and there have to be a million examples where we moderate our own behavior in consideration of others. Be one of those examples. Or don’t, but live knowing the rest of us hate you.
I said I booked the most direct option, not the cheapest. Yes, of course I’m the entitled one here.
Parents are mortified when their kids are screaming on a flight. They didn’t want this either.
A good pair of earplugs (e.g. loop) can help tremendously.
Well kinda said I wasn’t looking to rant about this part, but okay:
When the child is two seats over, my loops are not helping. When another child is running up and down the aisle every 20 mins, ear plugs aren’t the solution either.
I simply would not choose a flight where the majority of people would be trying to sleep if I were a parent. I would not want to put myself in a situation where it could even happen, no one wants to be mortified and on a long flight it approaches certainty.
A screaming child on a 4h middle-of-the-day flight is annoying but bearable. Screaming children on a double-digit hour overnight flight ruins many people’s days.
Some people have families in far away countries. I hate to say it dude, but it’s just one of those things.
No one enjoys screaming children in an enclosed space, especially not parents who already have to deal with child nonsense on a daily basis.
Maybe you don’t see it, but these situations are really distressing for parents and it would serve humanity well if we could have a little empathy for them.
I don’t mean this as a criticism, but I’m guessing you don’t have kids. I used to get annoyed whenever I ended up sitting next to infants on flights, but now I only get annoyed when said infants/toddlers are going wild and the parents are totally checked out.
If the parents are trying to calm their kids and it’s not working, I have nothing but sympathy for them.
Apply booze
e.g. loop
Or a pair of non-meme plugs that’s designed to actually block all noise. Mack’s Ultra Soft are quite excellent.
You knew what I meant. But ok.
It seems like a complete no brainer to me, I would choose it every time and pay extra for it
This part obviously isn’t true, or else you would have paid for First or Business class. There’s no guarantee that the expensive seats are kid-free, but it’s much more likely. They’ll give you free booze, too.
When I last flew international, my mum took business and the rest of us took economy. There was no noise on economy, but crying babies in business. The reason OP won’t pay extra for that is probably because there is no guarantee at all that it will be any quieter. It is not the same thing as what they want.
Well I paid up from economy, but that wasn’t enough apparently, the free booze helps but as you say it’s no guarantee.
Grow up. You think it’s fun for us when our kids flip out? What are we supposed to do, hit them so you don’t get a little bit disturbed?
Grow the fuck up and realize this world isn’t just you.
And the world isn’t just about them? Bit of a selfish argument
I’m just wanting to opt out, I’m not the one choosing to bring kids that will inevitably scream on an overnight flight where people are going to be trying to sleep. There are plenty of flights where people won’t be trying to sleep.
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Cool, that’s a mature reaction, just get angry rather than entertain the idea of considering others.
Ironically, that’s exactly how this post started…
What next? A flight for whites-only as you don’t want to sit next to someone who doesn’t look like you?
Gonna ignore the wild slippery slope fallacy you just pulled up there.
I didn’t say they need to fuck off and not fly, like the other guy. I just would go for an option where I have a better chance of sleeping. There are plenty of other adult-only spaces that are entirely not controversial, why not a handful of flights?
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If hitting your kids is the only way you can think of for getting them to behave, you’re very much part of the problem.
Well said
Not enough demand. Most people aren’t going to pay extra for a child free flight, especially if it’s a short flight. Most people will easily put up with a screaming child for a two hour flight if they can save several hundred dollars that they don’t have anyway.
Feel free to cross post to !parenting@lemmy.world for additional opinions
Like someone already said: Good pair of earbuds do wonders. Get the noice cancelling ones and you’re good to go.
Noisy kids (or noisy people in general) will continue to exist and as long as you use planes or public transport you have to deal with them.
Shoutout to every jackass who FaceTimes in a train.
Let’s take a moment to talk about the swathe of fully grown adults who think it’s OK to not use headphones on public transport…
I truly do not understand why people don’t simply wait until the kid is old enough to handle frying before travelling with an airplane. My family travelled a lot by train, or sometimes car, then when I was around 7 or 8 years old we took a short flight.
Babies really won’t remember anything of the trip anyway, I really feel that travelling by plane is one of the things that you sacrifice for the first years of having a child. Call me entitled or whatever, but your childs screaming or running around on the plane is absolutely annoying to others.
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Did Australia to London, plane full of screaming babies. Slept 16 of the 24 hours flight time.
What’s my secret? Anti-psychotics.
The closest thing to that I’ve experienced is flying Virgin. When I boarded they were playing downtempo house music and no kids in sight
Kids do hate house.
To be fair, 99.999% of virgins don’t have kids, so that’s just true to brand
With trains, there’s a designated “quiet car/coach” where things like phone calls or people being loud isn’t allowed. Maybe airlines could have something similar but maybe it’d be more expensive to implement?
