How about 21 and over flights where instead of soda, they serve alcohol and instead of the latest crappy adam sandler movie, they show debbie does dallas?

Screaming kids should be kicked off planes.
Loud and obnoxious drunks should be kicked off planes.
Talkative adult passangers should not be kicked off planes.
Talkative children should not be kicked off planes.

Is this really a difficult question to answer?

Oh puh-leeeeze. How about we get them to actually make the flights they already offer? Once they can do that, we'll look at "specialty" flights.

Right now, a "specialty flight" is one that leaves at least sort of on time, and gets to the destination it's advertised as going to....

I want to agree with Enm4r, but "buh bye plane" does start to get creepy after a while.

I agree with ENM4R, but maybe have kid sections of planes? Kind of like smoking and non-smoking, which sounds bad, but it might work.
I don't mind kids being kids, but it's when parents don't try to control them, or even encourage them, that gets me. Like I was once behind a family that put a DVD on and jacked up the sound so that all of their kids could hear it. I stood up at one point to leave my seat and looked at the screen while waiting for my fellow passenger to make way. The parent glared at me for looking at the screen.

I don't fly much, but I don't like bratty little kids.

You always here about the right to free speech, but are we guaranteed a right of selective hearing? Can we be forced to listen to other people's free speech? Thats never made clear.

The flight doesn't have to be "Baby Free", per-se... Just seat the yowling lil f**kers on the wings. Find themselves to short of breath to yap for very long I tells ya.

Things are fine as they are.

I recommend ear plugs to the "adult" babies responding here that say parents with kids should get booted from the plane. CRY ME A RIVER puh-lease!

Your whiners insensitivity is a bigger affront to me than a crying baby.

What other option do parents have? Until there are "kid free flights" you need to cope with it and not boot parents from planes.

Think of it this way, the parent has to get to their destination eventually on another flight, so in effect, YOU ruined someone else's flight because YOU booted the parent from their original flight.

I guess that doesn't matter since your flight was fine though eh?

Bunch of self centered babies.

The airlines should go beyond "kid-friendly flights". They should be offering FAA-approved car-seats for kids who pay for a ticket. As it is, we have to lug a car-seat through security and hope that it can buckle into the airplane seat properly.

Why can't they just make a little soundproof container where the baby can be sealed up for a while? A little aerogel pocket to dessicate the little fucker into submission.

Seriously though.

1) Kid flights.
2) Non-kid flights.

I hate kids, I find them annoying and smelly. I would rather enjoy children free flights. Let's say, nobody under 18 should be allowed on my flights. I hate to go that high, but I would hate for some bratty 15 y/o to ruin my peace and quiet.

I think Baby-free flights would be a good idea. Help out the people who are required to travel regularly for their work and that red-eye flight might be the only sleep they get that night, etc.

But at the same time, I don't want to see it heavily segregated. For a family with children, and babies, they might have limited times they can fly--so missing even a day one way or another might be pretty bad (what I mean is.. when traveling within the confines of, say, winter break.. if you're paying 1000$ a head to fly, you'd rather go for your full vacation time, rather then be told "no you'll have to take the flight a day and a half later--it's baby friendly."..

So, I think... on heavily traveled flights/routes, provide a few 'baby free' flights for people. Especially on overnight flights.

But for lesser traveled and longer flights (ie, Los Angeles to Honolulu) where it's not practical to have multiple planes traversing the same route, perhaps simply a section set aside for families with children. Perhaps at the back of the plane. Ideay, I would say, even having larger bathrooms near by so that I can be spared watching Mom change her infant in the seat next to me.

The biggest problem is that every child is different. I've seen 4 year olds who won't stop screaming, 9 month olds who don't make a peep, and children who'll only cry when there are other people crying.

Perhaps there should be family seating available so that families can be asked to move if need be. Of course, THEN you have people being upset because you ask them to move, etc etc... and people complaining about empty seats, and trying to move mid flight etc.

Better to just get them out of the way from the start, rather then trying to move them mid flight.

I'd rather say, no kids in first class. I once took a red eye from LAX -> BOS and someone had their kid in first class screaming all the way home. My 9am meeting was a bit rough needless to say.

At the end of the day, any douche bag can be a parent, and frankly some people should not be parents.

What's missing from the documentation of this situation is perspective. Its one thing if your child is quietly murmurring something that barely carries beyond your seat, and is saying it only say... every 10 seconds.

But if its "Bye bye plane" every 3 seconds, at the top of his lungs, for 10 minutes straight, and the parent refuses flatly to control her child, then I think its appropriate to ask that she quiet him.

This situation smells funny, since we're only hearing one side of the situation and I know a lot of parents who would put on their "That's -so- cute!" smile and dotingly pat their toddler's head while he's screaming, running around a supermarket, or flinging food and silverware all over the room at a restaurant.

Jaded, perhaps. But I've met a lot of parents with a disporportionate sense of entitlement, yes... being a parent is special, but no... being a parent does not 'make you special' or mean you shouldn't be held accountable for your child disturbing others under the shield of "he's just a kid".

Maybe a fine or something? If you (or your spawn) act like a drunken howler monkey, you owe the airline $1000 and can't fly again until you pay that off. Or public shaming - the red vest of "I shouldn't be allowed outside without a muzzle".

maybe if parents would discipline their children, this discussion topic would not be necessary.

i understand that babies will cry because they cannot equalize their ear pressure. bratty toddlers have no excuse. does that mom let her kid babble constantly during church or other "quiet" places?

i used to fly 2x a week for work. i am one of those self absorbed jerks that just wants to sleep and not listen to your bratty kid you are too self absorbed to discipline.

Baby-free flights, movie theaters, and restaurants would be a godsend.

I would rather put up with a screaming child than put up with the 1-2 hours it probably would take for the plane to return to the terminal, fight with person over getting off, re-enter line up, etc. To all you whiners complaining about kids crying - get yourself some earplugs and remember, you were a kid once, and most likely you either have kids, had kids once, or will have kids, so let's just get off the high horse. If you want the pamper treatment, join netjets and fly by yourself.

If there's a consolation in this thread it's that those morons who speak out against children so elegantly are not likely to breed. While I would hope that this means future ignorance is likely to be reduced, we all know that won't be the case.

Every flight I have ever been on, every single one, had more annoying adults than children. Perhaps they should offer discounts to people with children so the people who hate children will stop flying, that would be cool.

Grow up, get headphones. If you fly that much it's already a worthy investment. Close your eyes, picture a nice relaxing pool....

Now picture my son peeing in it.

Yes, kid section would be lovely, particularly on redeyes or long flights to/from Europe or Asia. I don't melt at the sight of some stranger's children but I don't think they need to ride on the wings.

I do question why people need to travel with baby so frequently, but...(shrug).

Worse than the baby screaming in pain for 30 minutes during descent on my last trans-atlantic flight was the obnoxious jerk who kept screaming at the kid's overwhelmed mother to do something. He was the greater disruption.

I'm 17 and just got back from a flight on El Al which if you've never flown it, it is filled with tons of kids. Kids don't bother me as long as they're well behaved and their parents keep them quiet and under control. The problem is, they usually don't. I was sleeping almost the entire flight in an aisle seat with a father and his son sitting next to me. The kid was kept busy and both his father and I could sleep in peace. I was only bothered once on the 10 hour flight when I was already awake when they needed to go to the bathroom. I don't mind people like that. I mind the little children who walk and scream up and down the aisles and bump into people who are sleeping. That said, old people need something to grab on when they walk the aisles and they always seem to shake my seat until I wake up as they walk by. JUST AS ANNOYING!

Y'all need to read this essay on children, and Americans' attitudes toward them, by prize-winning author Barbara Kingsolver:

[www.nytimes.com]

A refreshing antidote to some comments in this thread!

Offering family-friendly and/or kid-free flights won't solve the problem completely because part of the problem is people who are being rowdy.

Just because you don't want to be booted for your kid talking doesn't mean you also want to be on a plane where other kids are screaming.

Just because you're on a child free flight doesn't mean there won't be someone causing a disruption.

No one wants to be booted unfairly and no one wants to suffer through somone being loud and obnoxious. So it'd help but it would still need for people to behave better and not overreact to small stuff to really work.

@yg17: A plane full of horny drunks? Could you get any flight attendants to put up with that?

How about complimentary sedatives for kids 4 and under? I've been on one too many flights where toddlers would scream and cry - with possibly a 10 minute break - for pretty much the entirety of a 6-hour flight.

@LTS!: Watch a movie called Idiocracy and you'll realize it's the breeding population that is causing future ignorance.

uhhh -- wouldn't that fall into the age discrimination category? I did just have a howler-monkey of my own, but seriously -- aren't you all going a little overboard?

Anyone flying with an infant is asking for trouble with the change in pressures. A little children's benadryl would probably knock him out for the flight. But, toddlers and up should be disciplined enough to sit in the chair and behave for an hour or so. (Note -- as my child grows, my opinion will likely change and that's OK.)

How about a family section in the plane? First class, quiet coach, and family coach. I mean, even churches have cry rooms, so why not divide the plane into three rather than two sections? And put a solid wall (rather than just a curtain) between family and quiet coach, please. Grazie.

Baby only section in the back of the plane with a soundproof door that seals them off. How hard is it?

I agree with the above posts...a "special" plane that leaves on time would be nice too.

I really and truly don't understand why some people are the way they are. Granted, children can be annoying, but think reasonably. A plane isn't like a movie theater. If a parent is going someplace far away, it is much better to fly than to drive, ESPECIALLY with a child. And sometimes children can't be placated. Yes, parents who don't discipline children suck, but so do jerks who complain about anything and everything, like some of the people who want no kids on planes. I'd personally rather have a No-Jerk flight. One that doesn't allow people on who knock into the back of my seat. Oh, and don't allow anyone who complains for there being too much ice and not enough soda. If you have a problem with loud people (like I do) then bring an iPod!

I'd say that the problem isn't kids at all - it's self centered assholes who will complain about anything at the drop of a hat and not stop until someone does something just so they'll stop. It's so easy to target the kids when it's really some people's inability to deal with the realities of close contact with other human beings.

Wow, what a bunch of bratty adults we have here. Can't afford a private jet and don't want to drive, so you complain about having to use public transportation. Its funny how nobody ever calls my kid bratty to my face.

I love how parents immediately jump to the generalization that people think all kids should be kicked off planes. No, it's just you and your attitude that no one should interfere with how you raise your kids. Well ok, we won't interfere. Let the kid throw a fit, let them march around and cause destruction, but when you get kicked off the flight don't blame the insentive people around you, blame your poor parenting self for not controlling your child and teaching them some manners. In the end you had the kid, not us, that's you're responsibility and if you can't handle that, don't have kids.

@QuirkyRachel: I should give credit where due: you had already mentioned the family section option. I think this as an excellent idea.

People seem to be focussing on the wrong part of the equation. Neither the children or the airlines are a problem, we shouldn't be worried about providing flights that restrict or allow children, because the behavior of children is very different, as has been expressed by other commenters.

The problem, is that their parents suck.

Lets be honest, if you're planning to bring your child on a flight, you should come prepared, knowing that you and your child are going to be boxed in with potentially over one hundred people, some of which are not going to be kid friendly, some of which may be substantially intoxicated by mid-flight, some of which may be working on something important.

The bottom line is that you should be prepared to keep your child well behaved and quiet, and if your child gets out of hand, you should be able to get him or her -back- under control.

Its not the airline's responsibility to entertain and control your child, its yours. And despite how splendid an excuse "He/she is only a child!" is, your right to be a bad parent ends at the edge of the seat I've paid for.

Yeah-- all those self entitled parents who think that because they made a choice they can impose that choice on others are the first to throw a fit and try and get me booted from the plane when I get loaded and try and to get everyone on the plane to join in on a group rendition of Piano Man or There Was A Whore From Nantucket.

Try to remember: the only person who loves your kid is you.

Also remember: only the drunk thinks he can sing.

@Jasmo: Well said.

I can only imagine how some of them would react to taking public transit everyday.

I've said it before but - if someone/something annoys you and you'd like it to stop, (politely) SAY SOMETHING at the time and, if that doesn't work, escalate. If you sit there and sulk like a child, STFU. You have no moral standing to whine.

@BillyShears:
Sung to The Beatles "With a Little Help from My Friends.":

What would you do if you were on a plane? Would you drug all the kids to sleep?

What would you do, if the drugs that you gave, to a kid on the plane made them die? So....

(chorus)
You get kids, a little high on the plan. Kids die, getting drugs, on a plane. Don't wanna die getting drugs from a plane. BillyShears is an insensitive ass on a plane.

----
Since you are a Beatles fan I had to put this in a way you can understand. Drugging kids is bad. Mmmmmkay?

I say we just make flying extremely expensive again, since the lower classes clearly cannot keep their spawn in line like their betters. My little Aloysius Braithewaite Tumblethorpe IV is just an absolute angel when we fly. Of course, the free champers and caviar on our private jet help calm the little darling's nerves.

For what it's worth, I'd happily pay a little extra (not too much) for an 12 and over only flight. I personally have an aversion to children *shrug* I don't begrudge them their right to fly, but flying makes me nervous enough without their screaming so I'd prefer to make the choice and pay the premium to avoid it.

So to me it seems a simple choice: slightly more expensive premium flights that you can't bring children on. You could even offer slightly less expensive family friendly flights and I'd be fine with it.

I feel the same way about restaurants actually...I've run into a few too many ill behaved children lately.

Family friendly flights? Please...

So when they cancel your family friendly Wednesday morning 6:00 AM flight because it's only 20% full do you have to wait 6 hours for the next one?

Maybe we could put the kids with the pets in the cargo area instead. Then we could take any flight we want.

If you can't deal with kids, get some ear plugs and/or some noise canceling headphones.

@ElizabethD:
Oops, I guess comments don't allow direct links. ?

A couple of quotes from Kingsolver's essay:

For several months I've been living in Spain, and while I have struggled with the customs office, jet lag, dinner at midnight and the subjunctive tense, my only genuine culture shock has reverberated from this earthquake of a fact: People here like kids. They don't just say so, they do. Widows in black, buttoned-down c.e.o.'s, purple-sneakered teen-agers, the butcher, the baker, all have stopped on various sidewalks to have little chats with my daughter. Yesterday, a taxi driver leaned out his window to shout " Hola, guapa !" My daughter, who must have felt my conditioned flinch, looked up at me wide-eyed and explained patiently, "I like it that people think I'm pretty." ...
When my daughter gets cranky in a restaurant (and really, what do you expect at midnight?), the waiters flirt and bring her little presents and nearby diners look on with that sweet, wistful gleam of eye that before now I have only seen aimed at the dessert tray. Children are the meringues and eclairs of this culture. Americans, it seems to me now, sometimes regard children as a sort of toxic-waste product: a necessary evil, maybe, but if it's not their own they don't want to see it or hear it or, God help us, smell it.

If you don't have children, you think I'm exaggerating. But if you've changed a diaper in the last decade, you know exactly the toxic-waste glare I mean. It goes far beyond diapers. In the United States, I have been told in restaurants: "We come here to get away from kids." (This for no infraction on my daughter's part that I could discern, other than being visible.) On an airplane, I heard a man tell a beleaguered woman whose infant was bawling (as loudly as I would, to clear my aching ears, if I couldn't manage chewing gum): "If you can't keep that thing quiet, you should keep it at home."

My second afternoon in Spain, standing on a crowded bus, as we ricocheted around a corner and my daughter reached starfish-like for stability, a man in a black beret stood up and gently helped her into his seat. In his weightless bearing I caught sight of the decades-old child, treasured by the manifold mothers of his neighborhood, growing up the way leavened dough rises surely to the kindness of bread. I thought then of the ungenerous woman on the plane, and as always happens two days after someone has been remarkably rude to me, I knew what I should have said to her: Be careful what you give children, or don't, for sooner or later you will always get it back. - Barbara Kingsolver, "Everybody's Somebody's Baby"

How about a flight free of annoying adults?

@KIRZEN2007:

Remember these are airlines. Even the most well behaved children of the world's best parents are going to get cranky after their flight is delayed 7 hours.

Indeed, "manners," or should I say lack of them, are a big part of the problem. It's difficult to tolerate people of any age who don't have a reasonable amount of consideration for others or self-discipline. That includes shoeless and tank-top wearing adults, drunks, and noisy people of any age who enjoy repeatedly kicking my seat or reclining into me. In my daily life it's easy to avoid these types of situations, except when I'm traveling in a flying tin can.

Perhaps we'd be a little more tolerant if flying weren't such a miserable experience in the first place. If we had a few extra inches of personal space or were permitted a smidge more dignity throughout the experience we'd all be less apt to fly off the handle (in-flight or online).

Not only do we need baby/child free flights we need baby/child free restaurant hours, we need baby/child free movies, and baby/child free days at the amusement parks. NOT everybody is enamored with your bratty squealing child (Oh but he's REALLY a good kid otherwise). You leave work more often that your childless co-workers, you abuse more time off as a group than your child free co-workers, you don't put in the holiday time like your co-workers and you act like having children somehow exhonerates you from having to do certain things.

Children are a CHOICE, not mandatory. The rest of us are getting pretty fed up with your expectations of special priveleges because you have rugrats.

Just remember, we were all babies once!

I dont think we need to go as far as separate flights. It would be nice if they had a separate "family" section on the plane where people traveling with young children would be seated. Ideally with a partition between then and the main cabin. Failing that, have a couple seats in an enclosed are that parents could go sit with their child until it calms down. 2nd one is probably more feasible though since it doesnt limit the number of families on a plane, only the number of screaming kids that can be accomodated at once.

@louiedog:

Cranky is one thing, screaming and yelling is another.

And that still doesn't address the fact that when the inevitable outburst happens, the parent should be there to soothe, quiet, or discipline when neccessary. Anything short of immeadiate action on the parent's behalf, is unacceptable. Just as it would be in a restaurant.

When you go out in public, you bring your parenting skills -with- you, or don't come out.

@structuralpoke: Age discrimination only protects people over 40 years old.