Dutch Airline Introduces Child-Free Zones On Its Planes

Starting in November, Corendon Airlines will offer an adults-only zone on flights between Amsterdam and Curaçao. Seats in this zone will cost an extra €45 each way.

Details

Corendon Airlines, a small leisure carrier based out of Amsterdam, will offer an adults-only zone on their all-economy A350-900. This zone will be available to passengers sixteen or older and divided by curtains from the rest of the plane. 

The adult area will be surprisingly large, containing 93 seats or about 20% of the aircraft’s 432 seats. The seats in this area will be no different than those throughout the rest of the plane, so it’ll be interesting to see how many passengers fork over an additional €45 each way to sit there.

Child-free areas on planes are rare, but not unheard of

Corendon will be the only European airline to offer this service. As far as I know, only two other airlines currently offer child-free seating areas: the low-cost Malaysian airline AirAsia offers a Quiet Zone on its A330 long-haul flights, and the Singapore-based low-cost airline Scoot also provides a child-free zone called ScootinSilence.

My thoughts

Child-free flights and adult-only seating areas aren’t widespread despite most Americans saying they support the idea–though I assume that airlines haven’t implemented these ideas because, despite what we say in surveys, not enough fliers are willing to pay extra to avoid crying babies. The hesitancy could also be rooted in airline concerns about alienating family travelers, who comprise a significant portion of airline customers, particularly on vacation routes. 

Whatever the case, it’ll be interesting to see how full these adult-only zones get. If seats sell well, perhaps we’ll see more airlines embrace this concept, leading to a wider industry shift towards offering child-free zones.