Originally Posted by 22wingit
As long as they can manage what they are carrying unaided, I'm going to say that (unlike the armrest thing) those extra items really DO make the rest of us more comfortable.
The rest of what you said was, finally, a reasonable and rational argument... but the above is way out of line... I know that I am less cranky if I have things to entertain me, (laptop, portable dvd player, cd player, mp3 player, lots of books, lots of magazines, my own food, my own pillow etc.)... But I can't take that much carry on cause I follow the (normally reasonable) rules. so like a child, I get cranky too... sometimes I huff and puff, and I know this annoys my neighbors in economy where I usually sit.
I would say, if anything, families that want to take children on flights should be DISCOURAGED from taking them... since they take up more space, more carryons, slow down the boarding/deboarding process, require all sorts of other special treatment, are more likely to disturb and make UNCOMFORTABLE other passengers, (just like a COS might make someone uncomfortable).
Those families made a CHOICE: they didn't have to have kids... there should be no free ride for "children under two" on a parent's lap, disturbing the adjacent passengers... I'd say if someone wants to take a child, using an airline's bassenet, they should have to pay a "bassenet rental fee", of like $200 for the flight. Why should other people have to subsidize the cost of transporting all these annoying kids?