One Airline Will Test an Adults-Only Section to Avoid Babies and Kids

The adult-only section on a plane

Turkish carrier Corendon Airlines released an announcement earlier this week about their plan to offer a "child-free cabin" if you are willing to pay an extra fee. It will officially launch on Nov. 3 this year for only the flights between Amsterdam and Curaçao, which is about 6 hours long. The service will be reserved for "adult passengers" who are 16 and older for obvious reasons. The plane will be sectioned off by a curtain at first, and if the service gains enough popularity, the airline will eventually install a wall to replace the curtain.

According to the founder of Corendon Airlines Atilay Uslu in a recent statement, this feature is not only for the people who want peace of mind on the plane, it is also for the parents with kids to not worry about their kids possibly making noise bothering other people. He firmly believes that this is a feature that has real demand and is worth trying.

Reasons for Adult-only section

Why Babies Cry on Plane

Flying with children has always been a topic of discussion. Since children under a certain age are sensitive to the change in altitude since the cabin pressure presses down significantly, bringing them to the flight often leads to them crying because they lack endurance and awareness, and it can last for a long time and be really damaging to the experience of other passengers, especially on a long international flight. Babies not only have ears that are more sensitive than adults' ears, but they also are not capable of just equalizing the air pressure in their ears like adults do.

People tend to allow babies on plane

In a collective survey done by Kayak about what you can or can't do on the plane, people agreed that "you are allowed to bring a toddler. Because 78% of travelers don’t put themselves before the well-being of families." Since most people agree that babies and toddlers should be allowed on the plane, the "adults-only" section could be a good feature to ensure both parties have a good experience on the plane.

Further impact

On Tik-Tok, there are many videos of "annoying kids on planes" that are viral. A lot of the comments echo the sentiment and demand having an "adult-only" section. For a smaller carrier like Corendon Airline, it will be a trial and a great marketing strategy to start something like this. They gained tons of publicity from news coverage and people talking about the possibility. Many other carriers that are much bigger and offer long international flights where an "adult-only" section can be even more valuable are keeping a close eye on this test run that Corendon Airline is doing. If this experiment is successful and gains enough traction, it is possible that other carriers will be open to having a similar section that allows a quiet flying experience.

Previous attempts

However, a few other small airlines have tried similar things. Scoot, for example, the low-cost affiliate of Singapore Airlines, offered a feature called Scoot-in-Silence, which is an Economy cabin quiet zone where only travelers aged 12 and over are allowed to be seated.

Malaysia carrier AirAsia X also attempted the introduction of “quiet zones” back in 2013,  in which 11-year-olds and under are banned from the specified section of the aircraft to ensure the passengers have a quiet experience.

Stance of major US airlines

In this article, Skift asked most of the major US airlines about the possibility of an adult-only zone. The answers from their spokesman are universal "no", and it wasn't even something they would consider.

There are many reasons for that, but the main one is there really isn't enough financial interest to do what could be a logistic nightmare of regulating an adult-free zone, especially for these big airlines.

According to AirAsia X CEO Azran Osman Rani, the Quiet Zone program is overall a success, receiving a lot of compliments and few complaints. Parents love not having to feel guilty when their babies cry, and others can have a quiet environment. Importantly, he mentioned, “Overall, there has been a slight increase in the take-up rate of our seat assignment fee (people who pay to choose where to sit on the plane) but it’s not very significant,” and that might be the exact reason why major airlines will never be interested in such features.