Travelled PER-BNE with a child

[The man with no name]

The fact you are so fast to label others an "ahole" says everything I need to know about you.

Like you and many others I've been in the situation where I've had zero sleep because of somebody's screaming child. Not once have I voiced any views to the parents but I've heard others do so from once or twice. In contrast to you I saw it as a reaction born out of tiredness or frustration. Why is the parent the only one who can feel like this?

To state the obvious, any normal person would agree that any kind of abuse in this situation is wrong, as is tormenting the child.

 

[tdimdad]

As someone who's travelled with the small sweethearts, too, one of the best flights I've had was a 14h solo trip SYD - SFO which was heavily delayed on departure. With me on the three seats was a mum with a four year old and a one year old. As the trip progressed, I ended up entertaining the toddler more and more while she focused on the baby. Not all roses and sunshine as a flight like that with all its extended times spent is a torture for anyone (especially in the QF old 747 Y seats as they were) but it made the trip a whole lot more interesting and enjoyable. Every time since when doing long flights, I've remembered that trip with joy and encouraged by that would quite gladly at least ask if I can help should there again be restless tiny ones next to me.

 

[Lawrage]

Just to add some more info on our nightmare flight. It was PER-MAN on Qatar, this was right in the middle of when they were going through their issues with surrounding countries and the flights were taking a slightly longer route, adding onto this we were delayed on the tarmac departing Doha for over an hour.

There was no way I would have taken her on such a long flight if we didn't have to but one doesn't always have a choice with these things. The flight itself was fine and the air hostesses were amazing but in hindsight a midnight flight out of PER was probably not the best idea. We kept her up and thought she would be out as soon as we boarded but nope not a wink of sleep until she was in the stroller in Doha. My flight consisted of me walking the aisles, wondering the back of the plane as much as possible out of earshot of other passengers and letting her talk to the air hostesses. We took a bag full of wrapped toys to last us the trip, had movies and TV shows for her to watch so we went prepared (or so we thought).

Its hard to explain it but that flight broke me. No amount of reading and prepping before could have prepared me for it.

Fast forward ~1 year and it was a very different experience. I still don't think she could handle another long haul just yet (just doesn't sit still for long enough) but shorter 5-6 hour trips are well doable.

 

[Lawrage]

You're pretty quick to label others an "ahole" when you have no idea if their behaviour was out of line in the particular circumstances of this flight. You presumably weren't there and have only heard the point of view of Lawrage. I'm not saying his view is wrong just that there is perhaps another point of view. The reaction of the other passengers would indicate to me that they thought not enough was being done to calm the child down. Most people who travel have seen this in practice.

Just an FYI on this, I am not the type of parent that sits in my seat and puts my headphones on and lets her run around, screaming, kicking seats etc... My in-screen TV only got used to check how long it was until we land, my headphones didn't even make it out of my backpack (I laugh a bit thinking back of why I even bothered to pack them). I had 0 sleep just like her and spent the entire flight occupying her as best I could so please don't paint me with the same brush as the types of parents I think you may be hinting at.

 

[Denali]

...... We kept her up and thought she would be out as soon as we boarded but nope not a wink of sleep .....

From what I remember from my mum friends, rookie mistake that many have done. I have upmost respect for babies and their routines, they will make you pay for days if you mess them up. Hopefully next time will be better.

 

[Lawrage]

From what I remember from my mum friends, rookie mistake that many have done. I have upmost respect for babies and their routines, they will make you pay for days if you mess them up. Hopefully next time will be better.

Big time mistake. From now I we will be traveling on the flight that makes the most sense, not just the cheapest.

 

[JohnK]

Just an FYI on this, I am not the type of parent that sits in my seat and puts my headphones on and lets her run around, screaming, kicking seats etc...

We don't sit around watching IFE either. I sometimes listen to music for a few minutes and I have not watched the IFE since we started travelling together ~23 months ago.

Feel sorry for my wife as daughter bonds with her better. But now daughter is 2 years old and we have a tablet to load nursery rhymes and educational clips we are hoping travel will be a little easier.

 

[drsmithy]

We've flown VA BNE-ROK, BNE-SYD and BNE-AKL return with our (currently) 2.5yo twins a couple of times each (first when they were about 8mo old, most recently about 6 months ago) and the service and attentiveness of the hosties has always been excellent (admittedly in J). In fact, I even took the time to send in some positive feedback through the website after our first NZ trip because they were so good.

 

[mrsterryn]

Travelling LHR to SYD on QF2 first class a couple of years ago I was surprised to see a toddler in her own seat
I did wonder how she would go and briefly spoke to the parents.
They travelled often and usually had her with them in business class not with her own seat.
They decided they would see how she would go in her own seat. They were rather nervous. They were only doing the short leg from LHR to Dubai to trail

She was amazing . She was incredible articulate (she will win many battles with her parents )
She ensconced herself in her bed . Her screen was on and she happily watched movies for a while and then went to sleep.
Whilst she was awake she did a couple of times wander the cabin but did not touch anyone.
She was such a delight.
Her parents were very relieved she coped
On a recent flight home from HNL I was in the last seat back in economy. One rather harassed mother with her rather frazzled 2 (?) Year old giving his unimpressed opinion.
As she was standing behind I waved at the toddler and he promptly stopped. I had purple nails and he loved purple nails lol.
I feel so sorry for people who travel with a distressed child.
They would, usually, be concerned about the child and the other passengers. Lose lose situation.
I actually find a crying child more disturbing in business than economy

 

[The man with no name]

Just an FYI on this, I am not the type of parent that sits in my seat and puts my headphones on and lets her run around, screaming, kicking seats etc... My in-screen TV only got used to check how long it was until we land, my headphones didn't even make it out of my backpack (I laugh a bit thinking back of why I even bothered to pack them). I had 0 sleep just like her and spent the entire flight occupying her as best I could so please don't paint me with the same brush as the types of parents I think you may be hinting at.

Lawrage, my only intention was to illustrate a point that given Denali was not on that flight he was being presumptuous in calling out the other passengers as "aholes". There are other explanations for their actions and I'm not calling those right or wrong.

In no way did I wish to paint you or your parenting in a bad light and I apologise if that's the way I came across.

 

[blaz]

How can you make a judgement on two single flights? It often depends on the flight attendants personality ...some love children, others don't. It also depends on how busy the flight is. Flight attendants on a busy flight are more concerned with keeping everyone happy rather than the few. I have experienced both shortness and compassion on both airlines, and indeed all airlines that I have flown over 40 years of air travel. Having said that, my preference is always with a full service airline, but often, you get what you pay for.

 

[BillytheFIsh]

While I'm sure others (including Lawrage) have had different experiences, in my trips with children in tow I have always found VA staff generally more helpful and friendly than QF when it comes to kid issues. I've never had a real problem, but just little things like arranging gate checking of prams and other little things seem to be a chore for some QF staff.

I will say JohnK is a brave man. I don't mind taking one by myself, but I certainly wouldn't do it every few weeks.

 

[JohnK]

I will say JohnK is a brave man. I don't mind taking one by myself, but I certainly wouldn't do it every few weeks.

Not brave at all. It's the least I can do considering I have an 80 year old father and almost 75 year old mother and this is their first grand child. I'm very tired by the time I come back to Brisbane. For me it's not easy to wheel luggage with baby and stroller.

 

[Tanga]

I've flown with my kids internationally quite a few times. The biggest problem I've had has been with seating. Little kids need to sit with their parents for all sorts of reasons but both Virgin and Qantas hit us with extra fees when trying to arrange this. Worse, they couldn't or wouldn't help us arrange adjacent seating on their code-shared partner airlines, telling us that we'd have to make arrangements when we got to our intermediate destination. I've heard things are better now; I certainly hope so.

 

[brebbles]

Just to add a data point on this (or 14 as it turns out). We've had 7 return trips MEL-MCY with our now 2+ year old child, spread out pretty evenly from when he was 4 months old. We fly exclusively with VA. Up until he turned 2 we flew J as he sat on one of our laps, and on our most recent trip he'd just turned 2, and not being able to justify the cost of 3x J seats we flew Y up and Y+ back.

On all of those J flights the crew were great looking after us, for example being more then happy to stagger our meals, letting us eat in a spare seat so as not to wake bub, or entertaining him if they had a spare moment. To be fair, being in J I took for granted that they'd provided this service.

However it was our most recent trip in Y/Y+ where the staff were most impressive. Being his first flight in his own seat, he wasn't taking to having to wear a seat-belt, so the staff located an infant seat-belt and we were able to secure him on my lap for take off. On descent however all hell broke lose and he wasn't having a bar of the seat-belt. One of the crew came and spoke to him and cheered him up a bit, and then went off and returned with an activity pack to occupy him which worked a treat. On the return leg a crew member came with a container of toys she takes with her on all her flights and spent time sharing them around with the kids on the flight including ours. So in my experience all of my experiences travelling with kids on VA have been overwhelmingly positive.

In terms of kids/babies being disruptive on flights, in my memory there have been 2 times I've been woken/unable to fall asleep on a flight due to the behaviour of passengers. One was in Y+ when the parents of a family of 4 next to us decided sometime after midnight would be a great time to break open the board-game Trouble (the one where you pop the dome with the dice inside) - the crew eventually put a stop to this. The other was in F travelling from JFK-LHR when the portly gentleman seated behind kindly snored/snorted all the way from levelling out through to descent. Not much the crew could do about that!

 

[Nank]

My first flight was MEL-OOL on QF at the age of 6 weeks (not sure why I was travelling when I had just been born but we'll roll with it) and I have flown Qantas group with my family pretty much religiously since then aside from a few flights on Tiger and 2 on VA along with others overseas. I still remember the Qantas people always being so nice and friendly to me, giving me entertainment packs with all sorts of bits and pieces in them (though I was usually (and still am) more focused on looking out the window). Hell, even the ground crew loading the bags would sometimes give me a wave if they saw me watching them do their thing.
I have done a few flights with EK in the past 2 weeks (MEL-DXB, DXB-LHR, GVA-DXB, DXB-MEL) and they seem pretty good with kids too. Everyone gets blankets (actually really nice), pillows, headphones, personal comfort kit with a toothbrush, eyemask, earplugs etc. and all the other stuff you would expect on a long-haul flight (either way though 13.5hrs on a cramped A380 with an ear infection bloody sucks) and the kids got nice packs by the looks of it too. Whenever I've flown VA it seems decent enough but they are sorta operating in a kind of midpoint between Qantas and Jetstar. Some stuff is full service whilst other stuff is heavily reminiscent of a LCC. Get what you pay for I guess. Saying that though I have never had any troubles with any LCCs I've been on and although they might not give you free stuff all the time they are certainly still really nice and friendly.