Unruly Children on Planes

Let’s get things straight from the outset: I don’t mind children, and I quite like planes. Plane flights are a Good Thing, they allow us to travel great distances in a relatively short period of time. Children are also fine by me, as long as they are under control. I don’t even mind if you don’t control your children, just don’t inflict them on other people. This is where the trouble starts.

It is within the confined environment of a long haul plane flight, that unruly children become a problem to me.

Being around six and a half feet tall, I struggle to get comfortable on aeroplanes at the best of times. With a malevolent six year old kicking the back of my seat every thirty seconds for eight hours, this becomes impossible.

It should also be illegal for children to recline their seats. They simply do not need to. Their legs don’t reach the floor anyway.

On one flight I took from Egypt to the UK, I had managed to get a seat with some legroom, right at the front, which had no passengers behind either, so I had nothing to worry about. Unfortunately, the most precocious child on earth decided that she wanted to sit in the row behind us, and brought her whole menagerie with her. A five hour irritation.

On a flight to Australia, myself and the affable Adelaidian gentleman next to me (who coincidentally had three extremely well mannered children) had our meal ruined when the unattended seven or eight year old in front of us decided to recline his chair. At meal time. When we had full drinks. Thanks for that. The child’s parents had the audacity to ‘have a go at us’ when the guy next to me asked if they could stop their child from being a pest.

And this is the problem - people don’t like being told how to handle their children.

If you allow your children to wander a flight as if they are in a playground, causing discomfort to everyone in their path, at least be prepared to accept that they are, in some way, annoying to others.

(3 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)

 Loading ...