Most Kid Friendly Airlines?

[princessalexis]

We just got back from a trip to Disneyland and flew American Airlines. It was not a pleasant experience at all. I'm a single mom, so I fly with my toddler son with no help so it takes us a little while to board the plane and a while to get off the plane. We have flown 4 different times since DS was born and everytime it is an ordeal, but this was the first with AA. I don't believe that just because I have a child that I should stop flying. This last flight was almost the last straw.

On our flight to LAX, we sat next to the galley and I listened to the flight attendants complain loudly about children on planes during most of our flight. On the flight home the flight attendants were downright rude to me and got mad because it took me a few minutes to gather my stuff to get off the plane. I'm not expecting Disney-like customer service, but I would like to be treated like I'm a paying customer. I've always purchased DS a seat when he was an infant (he requires one now), and I bring plenty of activities and snacks to minimize any meltdowns. This was the first time he cried on the plane, and it was only briefly during takeoff.

Has anyone had any GOOD experiences with flying with little ones? Any airlines going above and beyond to make sure your flight was a pleasant one? We fly about 2 - 3 times a year and I am tired of giving my hard earned money to airlines who clearly do not want it.

 

[npmommie]

I certainly would send a letter to AA telling them what you just told us. You and your son have a paid for seat and you deserve the same customer service as anyone else.
We flew Southwest last fall, and they were fine, no complaints, they gave the kids little packets with coloring book, wing pin, and crayons.
I am sorry you had a bad experience.

 

[juliana_sd]

Wow, I'm sorry that happened to you! We just flew AA to LAX this week, and the FA's were great... one of them even took a fussy baby for a while to give the parents a break.

 

[princessalexis]

Wow, I'm sorry that happened to you! We just flew AA to LAX this week, and the FA's were great... one of them even took a fussy baby for a while to give the parents a break.

Wow, I wish I would have been on your flight! I will say that I just needed a good vent. After looking back, there was one flight attendant on each flight who was friendly (I think they were both the first class FA on their flights). It was just the intearaction with the others that completely ruined the trip for us.

 

[SharpMomOfTwo]

I've only flown once so far with my girls (they were 3 & 14 months at the time) and one brilliant flight attendant told me to give DD14m a piece of hard candy because she was starting to fuss at landing..... OMG, was she trying to kill my child??? It was as if the attendant was like, "OMG, not one more screaming kid, lets shup her up fast any way we can!"

 

[all4fun]

Long story short, due to some recent experiences with AA, we're not big fans either. Doesn't really have to do with them not beng "kid friendly" though.

DH and I are sitting here trying to recall an airline that didn't totally suck, much less one that is "kid friendly". Alaska did allow us to pre board on one trip with our then 4yr old. Normally, they only allow families with kids under age two to pre board. Delta FA's have generally been good to us. We flew Frontier once and it was fine. None of the airlines we have flown - NW, Delta, Frontier, Alaska, AA - have every given ds anything special that I can recall. It's been hit and miss how friendly the FA's are, mostly they just seem indifferent. I never really expect any special treatment either, just basic courtesy you'd expect from any customer interfacing employee. We also always pretty much took care of ourselves, keep ds entertained as much as possible, always bought a seat and bring a car seat for ds and I never needed help carrying or installing it either. Generally, we try to stay out of their way and just let them do their jobs. Flying is never a "fun" experience for us either, so I feel your pain there. Flying is generally a means to an end and we just try to make it suck as little as possible, lol.

I never heard any "behind the scenes" conversations like the one you overheard. That is really terrible. I would certainly write to AA and complain and make sure you put the date, time, and flight number. If you can remember any first names that would be pertinent too. You probably won't get anything in return for the complaint but maybe it will make you feel better to let someone know and certainly let them know you won't be giving them any of your hard earned money any more, nor advising anyone else to. I know we sure won't be either!

 

[tinker&belle]

We flew them before we had a baby, but Airtran seemed very kid-friendly...xm radios for each person, and the flight attendents interacted with the little ones and tried to make it fun and help the parents out. It was an Indy-Orlando flight, so maybe they put 'kid-type' people on those, but they were great!

 

[stacy6552]

havent flown AA in 14 years. Not since our son's first christmas. They are the absolute worst. WORST.

 

[3BoysRDisneyFreaks]

So far the 5 times that we have flown with our kids it has been on Midwest. We are in Milwaukee and that is their home base. The attendants are great and if you are on a flight that leaves after 10am you get 2 warm fresh baked chocolate chip cookies.

Hopefully with the way the economy is the cookies won't change. I will say though, I think we would gladly pay for them.

We have been on many MW flights with screaming kids (others not ours) and they have always been very helpful.

You think with how competitive the airlines are the FA's would be more friendly.


Sarah

 

[cel_disney]

I'm a frequent traveler on Delta and they seem to be better with kids than AA!!

We traveled with DS last fall and they were really helpful - and even let DH board with first class so that he could get the carseat installed. Once on the plane they were really good about asking us if we needed anything for 11 month DS (offering to help warm up bottles, get him water, pretzels, etc), and talked to him for a few minutes when we walked to the galley area for a little break...When it was time to deplane, the pilot asked us if DS wanted to see inside the cockpit too! All in all, it was as good as I could have hoped for from a travel with kids perspective!! I've seen similar behaivors on many trips when I dont have DS....

Soooo sorry to hear you had such a lousy flight crew!

 

[MamaOfTwoPrincesses]

We have had great luck with Jet Blue. I'm sorry to those of you who have had difficult experiences flying. It''s hard enough to fly with kids, let alone with unfriendly, unhelpful people!

 

[tinkandpan]

While not the greatest experiences, they were good with my kids on Continental.

 

[MNdisneymom]

The only airline I've every taken my DS 5 on (except for one trip as an infant) has been Sun Country. There are 2 reasons: the first is that they fly out of the smaller of the two local airline terminals (we live in the Minneapolis area, which is still a big airline hub, at least for now) and it is much easier to manage with a young child (I'm also a single mom). Also, they have a really cool kiddy playground that DS totally loves. The second is how friendly they are to us. (I'd probably still fly them even if they were at the main terminal!). Every time we go, DS either makes friends with the gate agent, or gets an airline pin from a steward, but his all time favorite was the time he got to stand in the cockpit and torment the pilot before we took off. (He invited him in, and was very patient about answering all of DS's questions.) I think there is something to be said about the smaller airlines--less of a big business, they can be more friendly and easy going.

 

[LovingtheCastle]

I have the SCREAMER that everyone (including me) on the flight dreads!! I've even tried to give him Benadryl (um, yeah, he had a "cold", really), but it only gave him more energy to throw a better fit.

My 6yr old girl has flown 50+ times and has never thrown a fit on the plane (she loves it). I thought those awful kid's parents must be doing something wrong , until I had one of those awful kids (who hates to fly)! Raised the same way as his sis, just hates to fly.

The very best that I've flown on with kids (even my son) was British Airways . Yes, I know that won't help you, but it's the truth. We flew AA non-revenue with my daughter, so they never treated us like gold (it was worth it to fly FREE).

As for US carriers, Southwest was the only one that ever even tried to help with our son in mid-fit. The FA attempted to give him a snack and a sticker, which he threw at her head (yes, he did get punished-as well as you can on a plane). We've only flown 10 NIGHTMARE times with my son. All of the other carriers' FAs just avoided him & looked at me with pity.

Good Luck

 

[mamaminnie]

We've done a fair amount of flying (including 2 trips to Europe) and I agree that British Airways is the best by far. Kid friendly food, travel goody bags, ice cream pops, etc.

Domestic I also like Jet Blue- just having access to Cartoon Network or Boomerang can make the flight bearable for all of us.

 

[ERMama]

Another person from Milwaukee here. We too usually fly Midwest. My oldest had a meltdown on our last NON Midwest flight because he didnt get any chocolate chip cookies.

 

[disfan07]

I have flown to disneyworld in th epast 3 yrs with 4 different families with kids ranging in age from 1 yr to 10 yrs adn this is what i have experienced so far....

I have flown delta, united, jetblue, adn southwest adn i rank them best to worst as.....
southwest, jetblue, delta adn united

i have flown on 3 southwest flights with kids and all three flights, the FA were soooo wonderful. On one flight to Disney, one of the kids(6 yrs old) got to help hand out snacks to the passengers and on the same flight, another one of theFA was playing peek-a-boo with the baby (almost 2) when she started getting fussy and we had trouble calming her down. the FA were alwasy so helpful with our carry ons, car seats, strollers....they were always there to help before we could even ask

Jetblue....they are basically a tie with southwest airlines. the FA were always so helpful with the kids and with all of our carry ons and helped install the carseat when we couldnt figure it out and of course the kids loved the directv...lol

Delta....my experience wiht them with kids has only been ok....the flight attendants were nice but they werent really helpful.....we were having alot of trouble with installing a car seat b/c none of us had ever flown with that car seat before and the FAs wer no help with that at all...one of the othe rpassengers ended up helping us...it was a pleasant enough flight...they just werent above and beyond like the Jetblue and southwest FAs ive encountered

United....worst experience i have had when flying with kids...this was a differnt family i was traveling with and it was taking a while to install the carseat b/c it was so complex and one of the FAs told us that if we couldnt install it within the next minute, they woul dhave to gate check it adn the baby would have to sit in the seat wihtout it....now this little girl was 13 months old...were we really going to ket her sit in the seat without a carseat...thast one of the funniest thing sive ever heard...and her parents are dead set against having her as a "lap baby" on a flight....we finally did get it installed with the help of 3 other passengers who had used that seat before it was stressful...and the flight got no better....the FAs woul dglare at use ever time they passed adn they got mad when the baby started fussing in the middle of the flight even though we wer eable to calm her down within like 10 mins.....it was so bad that we ended up switching out return flight to southwest to come home

so overall.....if im flying with a family wiht little kids, i recommend southwest adn jetblue as first choices

 

[lntsmom]

Southwest is ALWAYS my first choice! I've flown half a dozen airlines, some of which no longer exist, and Southwest is just my kind of airline.

My favorite story is about a flight from Chicago to Kansas City. It was supposed to leave Chicago at 10 pm, but due to fog, had to turn around, go back to KC, and wait. It was after midnight before it finally got to Midway.

The poor crew had been flying all day, the plane was filthy and they had no time to clean it, and the weather still wasn't the greatest. But, I was happy to not have to sleep in the terminal, so on I got. As we boarded the stewardesses had every person choose a bug sticker. After we were in the air they announced that whomever had chosen the mosquitos had to get up and do the beverage service...and those people actually did.

Then, the stewardesses entertained us by doing gymnastics up and down the aisles (luckily there was no major turbulance during that time), which was followed by the pilot coming on the pa system and singing "Sh-boom! Life Could be a Dream" complete with the stewardesses and passengers singing the chorus.

After that I decided that, if given a choice, I will ALWAYS fly Southwest. The crew could have been angry and sullen about having an extra 2 hours or more added to their already overly long day. It could have been miserable for everyone. Instead, it was an airborn party!

Southwest rocks!

The best part of this is, this Disney trip we are flying Southwest! Not that United and Northwest didn't get us there and back on previous trips, but they just aren't Southwest!

 

[princessalexis]

Thanks to everyone for their input on kid friendly airlines! I think next time we will try out Southwest - I know just waiting in the terminal for the train to take us to our terminal we were standing next to 2 Southwest pilots and they were extremely friendly and made me wish I was flying with them.

I will hopefully get around to writing to AA to let them know about my unpleasant experience. I'll post back if I hear anything from them.

 

[katied]

I've flown all over with DS - I think he's on about flight number 15 or 16??? He's 13 months. #1 in the US is Southwest (which is not saying much). Oversees, BA was great! The flight attendants went out of their way to help - way beyond what I'm used to. They carried my bags on, put them up for me, asked what the little one needed to drink - came by about every 10 min to see if he needed anything else. Offered to hold him so I could use the washroom, smiled, giggled, and generally were great with him (and on the one flight, they were all male flight attendants in their 20's playing with a toddler!). It was great.

On AA - I did have my absolute worst flight ever with DS, but that was more due to another passenger who berated me as a mother and berated DS (and who has the nerve to yell at a baby who's not even a year!). The flight attendents did try to help somewhat, but I asked multiple times if they could help me move - there was plenty of space on the flight, but with a car seat and carry ons and DS, it would be a bit much to handle myself. They instead tried to reseat the other passenger, but when he refused, told me - oh well. Since it was a 9 hr flight, it was NOT pleasant. However, a nice British guy helped me out.

Long story - U.S. airlines have the worst service, kids or no kids. BA, Air France, Quantas, JAL, etc. are all so much nicer to fly.

within the U.S. I fly AA all the time for work, but for personal travel, Southwest is my first choice.