An actual, real life, no joke, kids-free airplane cabin


Announcing a child-free zone on an airplane at the beginning of April is generally not a great idea if you want to be taken seriously. Canadian carrier WestJet had some fun with that this week and many folks enjoyed the laugh. For Malaysian Airlines, however, this is no laughing matter – they’re setting up a kid-free zone on some aircraft and they’re quite serious about it.

Two different Asian travel agencies (see here and here for reasonably coherent translations) are now publishing an alert from the carrier indicating that the upper deck on their A380 aircraft will exclude children under 12. This will apply to both the business and economy class seats on that deck. There is also a rather large economy class cabin on the main deck so accommodating those passengers shouldn’t be too difficult. The only business class seats, however, are upstairs so this may pose an issue for some passengers in that cabin, though others may see it as quite a benefit.

Happy flying.

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Seth Miller

I'm Seth, also known as the Wandering Aramean. I was bit by the travel bug 30 years ago and there's no sign of a cure. I fly ~200,000 miles annually; these are my stories. You can connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

7 Comments

  1. Now if airlines will just create a child-friendly section as a compliment to the “no child” section, I would totally sit there. Crayons, juice boxes, kid snacks and food, kid movies, etc. (the stuff you bring yourself now) I’m in.

    1. I’ve actually been quite impressed by the offerings for kids in the air, so long as you’re not flying a US-based carrier. Lufthansa stocks toys/games for kids on board if the manifest shows them booked as a child rather than as an adult. Sri Lankan did, too, even on the relatively short flight from Chennai to Colombo I was on. Sad thing about service is that it really does exist out there, so long as you leave the USA.

  2. Yes, I would also like to see a family cabin on aircraft. Beyond things like toys, etc, that could be implemented aircraft wide I’d like to see seats-facing-seats (so you don’t have to worry about your kids kicking the seat in front of you), smaller sized seats for children (with a possible discount if they can fit more seats), seats that more completely “combine” by storing the arm rest out of the way, car set attachments, better changing facilities, and possibly some noise separation.

  3. I think it’s great. Nothing worse than crying kids on a 19/20 hour flight. @Mommy Points – Asiana has very cool kids offerings, even clowns onboard! Though that might scare some kids.

  4. I agree, nothing worse than adults crying about kids on a long flight 🙂

  5. After the little turd sitting behind us in first class on the way back from the Dominican Republic a couple weeks ago I’m all for it.

    I can forgive a crying baby because, well, it’s a baby. They just don’t know any better and sometimes there’s no way to prevent them from crying.

    I can’t, however forgive your obnoxious 9 year old who won’t shut up and quit making a nuisance of himself. By the time your kid is 9 he should know the times to sit down and shut up and not to irritate the random people around him.

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