Should kids be allowed on planes?

I keep hearing discussions that there should be child-free flights for people who don’t want to be bothered by kids kicking the back of their seat. There’s a much better idea though… I read this article recently about Richard Branson’s idea to create a separate cabin for kids on Virgin Atlantic flights, where children would travel separate to their parents. Nannies would take care of the kids, who could make as much noise as they liked, while the parents could sit back and sip their gin and tonic in peace while watching a movie. Not only would it ease the stress on parents travelling, but it would keep those people happy who tut in despair (or in our case, sob) when they see you and your kids taking that spare row of seats next to them.

Given our plans for a 24hr flight from London to Brisbane coming up soon, this sounds like an appealing idea to me! Unfortunately it doesn’t sound like it’ll come off because of safety issues during an emergency. I have a second idea though, which I think would work and would be just as good…a family cabin. A whole section of the aircraft dedicated to people travelling with children. This could include longer rows of seats to accommodate larger families (we won’t be able to sit together on our flight as there are five of us), a play area where you can go to stretch your legs and discover some new toys, staggered meal times to allow parents to take turns eating without their food going cold while they both try to sort the kids out, more sky cots so you don’t have to panic about whether you’re going to get one of the few available and a separate exit to make getting on an off the aircraft less stressful. I’d happily pay more if this existed, and I’m sure many of us out there would too.

What would you like to see introduced for families on flights? Maybe we can pitch our ideas to Mr Branson to help make family travel a little bit easier!