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More than a third of flyers would pay extra to travel on a child-free flight

11th May 2014 Print

A recent survey has revealed that a high percentage of travellers would prefer to pay that little bit extra to have the option of opting for a child-free flight.

The survey, conducted by LateDeals.co.uk, asked consumers about their most hated gripes during a lengthy flight. Whether long-haul or short-haul, a hefty chunk of those surveyed - more than a third - admitted that they would not hesitate to fork out a little more cash for the privilege of kid-free journeys.

Little sympathy

As reported in the Daily Mail, the survey shows that when travellers are stuck on a 5 hour flight, there’s very little sympathy when it comes to crying babies and kids acting up. Kids who are anxious, excited or just bored, rarely keep this to themselves, and it seems that many flyers would prefer that they did.

Of course, parents on planes are doing their best to calm their children down and keep them quiet . But that doesn’t stop other passengers seeing them as a nuisance.

Child-free zones

A massive seven in 10 of British flight-goers think that planes should accommodate child-free zones on their flights, and nearly a third of those surveyed (a total of 30%), said that these child-free zones should be included on all flights, whether they are long or short haul. 

Only four in 10 surveyed passengers said that child-free zones should be implemented on long haul flights only, and nearly a fifth (18%), of those who responded to the survey revealed that they had been moved from their seat during a flight in order to allow a family to sit together.

Common flight gripes

It’s not just kids playing up that appeared on the survey. Also appearing in the list of biggest annoyances were loud travellers, body odour and lack of legroom.

The top annoyance on long flights were drunk and rowdy travellers, which more than half of travellers (58%) cited as a common flight gripe.

In second place was fellow travellers with bad personal hygiene. A total of 48% respondents penned this down as one of their air journey annoyances.

In a very close third was seat-kicking, which 47% of respondents marked down as an irritation.

The fourth highest annoyance was babies crying. 43% of survey respondents put this down.

Lack of legroom took the fifth place, with 41% of flight-goers stating they had experience this.

Overweight passengers who took up extra space took 31% of people’s vote.

Taking up the lower spots were:

People hogging arm rests: 14%
Poor quality food on the flight: 12%
People snoring: 10%
Rude cabin crew: 9%
Unallocated seating: 8%
Not enough refreshments available: 7%
Running out of meal options: 7%
Temperature in the cabin: 5%
 

With a number of airlines across the world considering, and sometimes even installing, child-free zones, the future is looking bright for childless travellers.