Henry Beasley is a musician who hails from New Zealand. Not long ago, he was on what he claimed was a 29-hour flight to Berlin (yeah, I know the world’s longest flight has been less than 20 hours; I guess he’s including stopovers? Or was just exaggerating? I dunno). Apparently so was a child who was not happy to be on that flight, because they wailed so much that Beasley eventually made a TikTok video about it that, at last glance, had about 2.5 million views:
@balubrigada Hey babe, how was your flight?
The comments to the video, of course, were heavy on the topic of kid free flights and kid free sections of planes. Not the first time people have brought that up, won’t be the last. But it turns out that a small handful of airlines actually DO take the possibility of flying without screaming children to heart:
AirAsia X
AirAsia X (AAX) is the medium haul, low-cost affiliate of the AirAsia Group. It commenced operations in 2007 and operates an all wide-body A330-300 fleet. AirAsia X currently has 12 aircraft in service that offer flights across seven popular routes from Kuala Lumpur to New Delhi, Sydney, Seoul (Incheon), Tokyo (Haneda), Sapporo (Chitose) and Osaka (Kansai), and from Osaka (Kansai) to Honolulu.
Since 2013, Air Asia X has offered what they call a ‘quiet zone’ cabin class. It takes up rows 7 through 14 of the economy section. Open to passengers aged 10 and over, passengers can book seats in this part of the plane for a small fee.
With a seat in the Quiet Zone, you can expect:
- Minimal noise with no disturbances
- Strategically located behind the Premium cabin from rows 7 – 14 for speedy disembarkation
- Gentle ambient lighting
- New! – Early meal service
IndiGo
IndiGo is a low-cost airline headquartered in Gurgaon, Haryana, India. It commenced operations in 2006 and operates nearly 250 Airbus A320s and 321s, along with 35 ATR 72-600s.
Although not a member of any alliances, IndiGo codeshares with Air France, American Airlines, KLM, Qantas, Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines and Virgin Atlantic.
IndiGo introduced its version of Quiet Zones in 2016, where children under the age of 12 would not be allowed to sit. As they said in a statement at the time:
Keeping in mind the comfort and convenience of all passengers row numbers 1 to 4 and 11 to 14 are generally kept as a Quiet Zone on IndiGo flights. These zones have been created for business travelers who prefer to use the quiet time to do their work.
The airline further added to this restriction saying that the same age group of children won’t be allowed to sit in rows 1, 12, and 13, which, besides offering extra legroom, also the location of their planes’ emergency exits.
Japan Airlines
Founded in 1951, Japan Airlines (JAL) is Japan’s flag carrier and the country’s second-largest airline (as of 2021). It’s a member of oneworld Alliance.
JAL doesn’t have any dedicated quiet zones on its planes. Instead, they have a key image in maps of their planes. Besides pointing out where the exit seats are and which seats have more leg room, they also tell you where infants aged 8 days to 2 years are sitting. Here’s more information about it.
Malaysia Airlines
Malaysia Airlines was founded in 1947 as Malayan Airways, but have flown under its current name since 2015. They’re a member of the oneworld Alliance.
The airline has attracted both praise and criticism for its decision to not allow children to travel in certain classes or cabins of its aircraft.
- Infants are not permitted in First Class on Malaysia Airlines’ Airbus A380s due to the non-availability of baby bassinets in the cabin.
- Children under the age of 12 are not allowed to travel in the 70-seat upper deck economy section of the airline’s A380s.
Scoot Airlines
Scoot Airlines is a subsidiary of Singapore Airlines. It began operations in 2012, on medium and long-haul routes from Singapore. They fly a small variety of Airbus A320s, A321s and Boeing 787s.
Scoot Airlines is part of the Value Alliance (one of those alliances you rarely hear about. Here are some other ones).
Scoot offers a program on their 787s called ScootinSience, which is their version of a quiet cabin zone. From their website:
Scoot in peace and quiet when you reserve seats in our ScootinSilence zone located at the front of all our 787 Dreamliners. Besides the exclusive and silent cabin (no kids under 12 allowed here), you can also enjoy additional comfort — every seat comes with an adjustable headrest and you can reserve Super and Stretch seats (where available)! What’s more, you’ll also be able to get off the aircraft ahead of others upon landing!
Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on how you look at it), no U.S.-based airline has ever seriously looked at having child-free zones on any of their planes (could you image the brouhaha if they did?!?!). Then again, neither has any airline in the Americas, the African continent, Europe, or most other parts of the world, either; it seems to be a very “Asian” thing.
Feature Photo (cropped, built upon): Bridget Coila / flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0
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