I Flew Business Class While My Kids Flew Coach. So What?

I was just settling into my spacious business-class seat, when I started thinking about my children. “I kind of miss them,” I said to my husband, sipping a glass of free champagne. “Do you think they’re OK?”

“They’re loving being without us,” he insisted.

I leaned back into the downy comfort of the lie-flat seat. Of course they were.

The kids weren’t 30,000 feet below us being looked after by grandma. They were just seated a couple of cabins away in premium economy, amusing themselves with their iPads and in-flight touch screens.

We are a frequent-flying family. Since I’m an expat American living in London, we’re frequently boarding planes to visit family and friends back home.

This past Christmas, we had the option of booking two business class tickets using miles. But it meant the other two tickets would only be premium economy. We hesitated. Should we fly business while consigning our 16- and 11-year-old to less desirable seats? The moment of doubt quickly passed. We pressed the button.

There has been a lot of talk recently about parents and children sitting in different cabins, thanks to the #UnitedWithIvy controversy. After Elit Kirschenbaum was prevented from holding her disabled 3-year-old daughter Ivy in her lap for takeoff, she launched the #UnitedWithIvy campaign, which sparked a storm on social media. Soon after, it was reported that the Kirschenbaums were seated in first class while their special-needs daughter and some of their other children were ticketed in coach. The backlash against Elit Kirschenbaum was brutal. 

We are a frequent-flying family. Since I’m an expat American living in London, we’re frequently boarding planes to visit family and friends back home.

This past Christmas, we had the option of booking two business class tickets using miles. But it meant the other two tickets would only be premium economy. We hesitated. Should we fly business while consigning our 16- and 11-year-old to less desirable seats? The moment of doubt quickly passed. We pressed the button.

There has been a lot of talk recently about parents and children sitting in different cabins, thanks to the #UnitedWithIvy controversy. After Elit Kirschenbaum was prevented from holding her disabled 3-year-old daughter Ivy in her lap for takeoff, she launched the #UnitedWithIvy campaign, which sparked a storm on social media. Soon after, it was reported that the Kirschenbaums were seated in first class while their special-needs daughter and some of their other children were ticketed in coach. The backlash against Elit Kirschenbaum was brutal. 

The response reveals how divided we are about parents sitting a class or two up from their children on airplanes. Is it something only practiced by spoiled celebrities with traveling nannies or wealthy, checked-out parents? What about togetherness and a sense of community? Do people who sit in business while their kids sit in coach love free champagne more than they love their children?

In my case, maybe.

But when I wrote positively about our separate and unequal seats on my blog Jenography.net, the response wasn’t censure. It was envy.

“How are they going to know how good they have it when they finally work their way to the front of the plane if they haven’t first suffered in the back?” wrote commenter Catherine Hanna, who has also flown separately from her children with no regrets.

An attorney from Austin, Texas, Hanna was upgraded to first class with her husband during a flight from Los Angeles to Honolulu while her teens remained in coach. She felt no qualms about taking advantage of the caviar, the sundae cart, and the super-attentive service. “It’s like Downton Abbey. All I remember feeling was glee,” she told me later.

And why not? What parent wouldn’t like to swap hours of cramped child supervision and snack curation for a mile-high date night with their partner that includes a film, a nice meal, wine, and a down pillow?

“We see the practice especially during holiday times from the UK to Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, and the States,” says Stuart Lodge, a director at RoundtheWorldFlights.com, a travel booking company based in London. A lot of people do it the way we did — with miles — and it works best if the children fly regularly, he says, because they know how to conduct themselves. Yet even though “business class is lost on a lot of kids,” Lodge says, “some people feel guilty the first time.”