With cramped seating, vanishing legroom and stale air, cheap economy flights are becoming the bane of long-haul air travel for budget travelers who care more about airfares than comfort. On top of that, some people sniff at the thought of flying economy for various reasons, including crying infants, screaming toddlers, nosey co-passengers, middle seats, snorting adults, passengers with multiple cabin bags; the list goes on.
According to a study by IndianEagle.com on what many of its customers find the most annoying about flying, crying infants, prancing kids and seat kickers top the list. Akin to the find by Indian Eagle Travel is the result of the surveys that several airlines have conducted among their frequent flyers, digging deeper to know what annoy them the most on board.
Some of the survey participants having kids admitted to feeling like the most annoying people aboard on seeing the agitated faces around. Neither bearing with kids throwing tantrums much to the annoyance of others, nor child-free travel for those who hate sitting next to kids can be justified. Not all airlines are as generous Etihad Airways to offer onboard nanny service.
No airlines can promise child-free travel; but Japan Airlines has taken the middle of the road to help grownup travelers avoid sitting next to a crying baby or a kid screaming demands at the top of voice.
Japan Airlines has rolled out a baby seat map, a first of its kind in air travel, to show the seats reserved by flyers with infants or toddlers on a flight, so that not-so-much-fond-of-onboard-kids travelers can seek safe refuge in any corner of the cabin for peaceful journey. Integrated to Japan Airlines’ web check-in system, the ‘baby seat map’ feature will display seats with a child icon for those traveling with kids between 8 days and two years. This helps other travelers seeking child-free travel pick their seats at a safe distance from those with kids.
However, Japan Airlines’ baby seat map is not absolutely foolproof. The Japanese carrier says that the new feature may not display the child icon in certain cases like a change in aircraft. If a jet deployed for a scheduled flight is replaced by a jet with different seating configuration in the last hour, Japan Airlines’ baby seat map may not work for the baby-averse passengers.
There is a mixed response to Japan Airlines’ ‘Baby seat map’ feature. While some travelers thanked the airline for giving a clue about where babies may sit and scream, some others denounced it as an anti-human feature.
One Twitter user went on to tag Qatar Airways in his tweet about Japan Airlines’ new tool for the baby-averse folks and wrote that there were three screaming babies next to him on his flight from New York JFK two weeks ago.
