Corendon Dutch Airlines, the Dutch subsidiary of the Turkish airline Corendon Airlines, will offer from November 3 “adults only” areas on its flights between the Netherlands and Curaçao. Of the 432 places, 102 will be reserved for adults.
Corendon has designated the forward-most compartment of the A350-900 as an area reserved for persons aged 16 and over. If you want to sit there, you will pay an extra 45 euros each way; while for XL seats with more space it will be 100 euros.
The “Adults Only” concept is nothing short of dishonouring. Adult-only hotels and resorts are now common and cater to people who can’t stand the squirming and screaming of children.
The idea is not entirely new. Ten years ago, Malaysia Airlines introduced a child-free zone on the upper deck of its Airbus A380. A few years later, competitor Air Asia X followed suit by offering a quiet zone in its planes. Children under the age of twelve were not permitted in the first seven rows of economy class. However, neither solution had really worked.
