Etihad finds a way to keep earache at bay

AIRLINE NANNIES:TRAVELLING with young children can be a nightmare – especially for other people. If parents are tearing their hair out with the screaming, earaches, tantrums and the difficulty of nappy changing on an aircraft, imagine how adult passengers without children feel.

The annoyance is apparently making people book higher-fare airlines. A survey of 750 people by Continental Research found that 28 per cent of travellers are deterred from budget airlines because of screaming children. On traditional carriers, just 15 per cent were put off flying by noisy children.

Etihad Airways thinks it has found the solution: airport nannies. The airline has introduced trained nannies to its first- and business-class lounges at Abu Dhabi airport. The nannies meet and greet the children on arrival, then bring them to a family room so that parents can remain in the adult lounge and unwind.

Special family check-in desks are also being introduced, along with children’s menus and children’s in-flight entertainment.

The innovation is not purely in the interest of families. Etihad seems to have been spurred to cordon off children as a result of feedback from travellers without children. They put it politely: the nanny service “helps provide an adult environment for those other passengers who are not travelling with children”.

You may well ask: who are these lucky children flying first- and business-class and throwing tantrums? But there must be a market there.

As for the adult passengers with behaviour difficulties, Continential Research also found that more people were put off budget airlines by rude adults than by rude children – a whopping 32 per cent were repulsed by their fellow adult passengers, compared with 28 per cent annoyed by children.

Perhaps some children are better behaved than their parents.