Japan Airlines baby seat map has re-entered the chat. Here's why I love it and why it shouldn't exist.

Back in 2019, Japan Airlines brought in a little icon on their seat map's showing where a baby or toddler (between 8 days and 2 years old) has been booked.

And I love it. I also can't quite believe it took this long to invent, but there you go. Thanks to a feature on ITV's This Morning, the conversation around it has come back up again and I'm intrigued by it.

Let's get the obvious bit out of the way first, because I know it's coming the second I post this. Babies are allowed on planes. Toddlers are allowed on planes. Children are allowed on planes. This isn't a controversial position, it's just how plane travel has always worked.

Nobody needs a permission slip from the person in 14C to bring their nine-month-old to a wedding in Faro. Or to take their 5-year-old to Disneyland. An aeroplane is a shared, public space, and if you're hoping for a guaranteed quiet bubble every time you fly, that was always going to be a big ask.

One that always grinds my gears is those who use travelling for business to excuse their views that they should get silence on the plane because they need to sleep, or prep for a meeting. I'm sorry, but there is a really good fix for this, and it's called noise-cancelling headphones. A decent pair goes a long way toward the kind of peace people are after, in the same way they'd reach for them if the person behind them was watching a film with no headphones at full volume, which is a choice an adult is making. A crying baby isn't really the same thing. It's a small person who can't regulate their own ears popping at altitude, doesn't have the words to explain what's wrong, and only has one way of telling you about it. It's a different situation, and probably deserves a bit more patience than we sometimes give it.

Which is exactly why the JAL icon is lovely. It's not asking anyone to be delighted about sitting near a baby. It's not mandating child-free zones either. What JAL has actually done is much simpler which is to give people the information, and let them decide. If you'd rather not sit next to a lap infant, and you're booking early enough, you can see the icon and move a few rows up before anyone's even boarded.

Here is how the seat icon looks

And it cuts both ways, because that's the part people miss. It also means the parent travelling solo with a baby doesn't get seated next to someone who's visibly annoyed before take-off even starts, because that person self-selected their seat, and so should have been aware ahead of time that they'll be sat near a toddler.

It's considerate in both directions, which is rarer than it should be in a debate that usually gets framed as parents versus everyone else.

Oh, and if you think it's ok to shame the parents of the children just because they have deigned to bring the child onboard, or because they have a little cry, shame on you. If there is a child kicking the back of the seat you are in, then yes, a gentle polite word to the parents along the lines of "I am so sorry, but would you mind asking your child not to kick the back of my seat. Thank you so much, I am so grateful" is fine ... or get the cabin crew to do it. But don't shame a parent purely for bringing a child on board.

Now, back to the seat map. There's a small, very "aviation" caveat buried in JAL's own wording: the icon may not display correctly if there's a change of aircraft, and it doesn't appear at all on some codeshare flights. So it's not a perfect system. Also, if you book on a third party, that third party website wont show the little people, just JAL's own website.

Because here's the heart of it. A peaceful flight is something we'd all like, but it's not something you get guaranteed, and it was never going to be reasonable to expect it from a baby who's simply too young to understand what's happening to their ears. What JAL has done isn't a promise of a child-free cabin. It's just honesty, offered upfront, so the people who'd like to plan around it can, and everyone else can get on with boarding.

More airlines should be doing this. Not because babies are a problem to be managed, but because a bit of information, offered without judgement, is what good customer service looks like.

JAL has found a way to be considerate to nervous parents and to weary travellers at the same time, without either group needing to feel like the difficult one. That's a nicer trick than a little icon makes it look.

Helena

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