Come fly with .... ?:

With the Easter and April holidays over, many families are starting to plan for a mid-year vacation – or even thinking ahead to the long holiday break at Christmas time.

For airlines, any school holiday break means more child passengers and that’s a whole new market for airlines to conquer with 72% of mothers believing that airlines do not adequately cater to families travelling with children. This is despite the fact that families with young children are ‘veteran’ travellers by the time kids are at school: the survey showed that 35% of mothers with children aged under 10 had flown more than 10 times with their children. Three-quarters of the mothers intend flying at least once with their children this year.

According to the survey conducted for Fly.com of mum travellers from the US, Australia and Canada, 51% believe it is unacceptable for airlines to ban parents with elite status in frequent flyer programs or travelling at the pointy end of the aircraft from bringing young children into business or first-class airport lounges; 30% did not like airline decisions to prevent children from sitting in certain seat rows, and 69% were unhappy about the elimination of pre-boarding for families travelling with little ones.

The survey also showed that flying with children is stressful. Almost 70% of mothers rate their level of stress as moderate to extreme, with the leading cause of anxiety the fear that their child will disturb other passengers. Many mums worry more about their child disturbing others than they do about their child's comfort during the flight, with two-thirds of mums believing that there is a negative stigma attached to flying with children.

So what is the best gift that airlines and airports can give their mum passengers? According to survey respondents it is more child-friendly amenities. The top four requests were:

1.  Child play areas at airports to help tire out the kids before they get on board.

2.  Dedicated family lanes at security checkpoints.

3.  Complimentary in-flight activity packs.

4.  Appropriate in-flight entertainment programming with headphones suitable for smaller heads.

"The airline industry has a lot to gain if it can better understand the needs of mothers flying with young children," said Warren Chang, vice president and general manager, Fly.com. 

"With more tickets purchased per itinerary, it's a great opportunity for airlines to develop a loyal and lucrative passenger base. Just as business travellers appreciate targeted services to improve their flight experience, so does the traveling parent."

What's your favourite airline for travelling with children? Let us know.