Family-only sections on planes? Don’t bet on it

Harriet Baskas Travel writer

Do you think airplanes should have a separate section for families?

If you do, you’re not alone. Consider: 730 of the 1,000 travelers who recently took an online survey designed by the folks at Maritz Research thought so too.

And it’s not just people who hate flying near kids who are in favor of clustering families together on airplanes. Plenty of parents and grandparents with kids in tow say they’d love that arrangement as well.

For example, in a response to a recent Well-Mannered Traveler column, Megan Stackhouse from Virginia wrote to say: “As a mother of four ... and a veteran of many flights with all in tow at various ages and stages, I have to say that a family-friendly section on a plane would be a welcome addition ... When we had toddlers, we got so tired of the grumpy looks and unkind comments from people who either never had kids or who forgot that they were once kids themselves. Keeping a baby, toddler or preschooler happy and quiet for hours and confined in a cramped space is unbelievably STRESSFUL. Having a section for families where we could all relax knowing we didn't have others judging our parenting skills but rather exchanging sympathetic looks would be so refreshing. We might have traveled even more ... if the flights had been so accommodating.”

Stackhouse and others may have gotten their hopes raised — and then dashed — last week when an AP story about Southwest Airlines got headlined in various news outlets as a story about the airline “mulling family-only sections.”

But “that’s not true,” says Southwest spokesperson Brandy King. She explains that as part of an overall review of boarding procedures, the airline best-known for its “first-come, first-seated” policy is taking a look at how it accommodates families. “The tests being conducted at San Antonio International Airport right now are focusing on how we board families, not how we group them on board.”

Currently, Southwest offers open seating to passengers who first secure a boarding pass for one of three groups (A, B, or C) and then stand in line at the airport to board with their lettered group. Families with small children (and anyone needing special assistance) have been allowed to board early, before passengers in Group A. In the San Antonio tests, says King, one scenario has families boarding after the passengers needing special assistance and after, not before, passengers with boarding passes in Group A.

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“Some scenarios also had the flight attendants reserving a few rows for families” in case there weren’t enough seats for a family to be seated together after everyone in Group A has boarded,” says King, “but the goal was not to create a special section just for families.”

King says the results of these tests aren’t yet in, “but in general, families are savvy travelers and many of them end up in Group A anyway.” And she says no one has to fret just yet about any changes going into effect without warning. The family boarding tests are just one aspect of Southwest’s overall review of its boarding procedures and any policy changes won’t be announced or put into effect until sometime in 2008.

In the meantime, let’s imagine for a moment what a flight might be like if families with kids were all seated in one area.

Surely that section would be by the bathrooms. But would it be a free-for-all with goldfish crackers flying back and forth across the aisles? Would kicking the seat in front of you be fine and dandy as long as you checked to see if there was another kid sitting there? Would the refreshments be milk and cookies or apple juice and grapes instead of soda and pretzels? Would there be enforced nap time? And would the video monitors play only cartoons and PG-rated films?

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