Posted on February 12, 2008 by Fiona Hilliard

In a poll of frequent flying parents carried out by Rough Guides, for upcoming publication “The Rough Guide to Travel with Babies and Young Children,” both Ryanair and easyJet fared poorly in terms of travel with children.
According to the survey, Virgin Atlantic was voted as the top child-friendly airline, closely followed by British Airways.  Meanwhile, easyJet and Ryanair picked up just 8% of the vote between them (6% and 2% respectively). 

Commenting on the results, Fawzia Rasheed de Francisco, author of the book said:  “Aside from baggage restrictions, budget airlines tend to be allocated inconvenient gates in airports, involving walking long distances, negotiating stairs and buses etc – tough going with small children.  There’s also the fact that budget airlines make it hard, if not impossible, to change plans without buying new tickets, when you factor the cost implications for a whole family, the so-called budget tickets can work out to be more expensive in the long-run.”