According to The Christian Science Monitor, Malaysia Airlines has implemented a ban on babies in the first class area of the new aircraft, A380-These fly from Kuala Lumpur to Sydney, London and Amsterdam. Babies have already been forbidden from the first class cabins of jets from the carrier, such as the Boeing 747-400.
The reason is reportedly because first class customers have been complaining about crying babies.
The CEO of Malaysian Airlines, Tengku Azmil, tweeted that “we already hand out noise canceling headphones in 1st class. They don’t work so well for babies crying.” The Christian Science Monitor reported that Azmil also added that there was not enough room on the new A380 to accommodate bassinets in the first class bathrooms.
Infants will be allowed to fly in the business and economy sections of the aircrafts.
According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the issue of flying with or without children on board has been controversial for many years now. In a survey conducted in 2010, 60% of traveling people wanted a “family friendly” section to be constructed on aircrafts, for people traveling with children, keeping them in one area. Non-parents seemed to be the biggest supporters of the idea of the “family friendly” area. The majority of the people desire to “sit as far away as possible from children.”
Malaysia Airlines is not the only air carrier to support this idea. The European budget carrier, Ryanair, plans to start having child-free flights beginning in October. British Airways and Virgin Atlantic proposed the idea of having child-free flights in February, but no definite announcements have been made from those airlines.
