A pointy issue: Should children be allowed to fly first class?

Intellectual property lawyer Ted Marr was on an Air China flight from Beijing to Sydney recently, seated next to a woman with a baby in the first class/business cabin. Just as he was about to have his first sip of champagne, his neighbour decided to change her infant's dirty diaper - and she did so right there at the seat.

"The torture had started before we even took off," says Marr. Mercifully, he managed to switch to an empty seat elsewhere in the section.

Dane Steele Green, founder of US luxury travel firm Steele Travel, also recalls similar torment when he flew from Athens to New York with nine babies in a packed first-class cabin. "Once one started crying, they all did," Green says. "It lasted pretty much throughout the flight. It certainly does tarnish your experience of first class, regardless of how powerful your noise-cancelling headphones are."

The issue of whether minors - children under 12 - should be allowed in premium cabins on airlines has blazed up the blogosphere in recent months, with frequent fliers railing against having children sitting up front.

Their rationale: they pay extra for the peace and privacy that comes by not flying economy, so the last thing they want is restless toddlers running up and down the aisles, kids engaging in food fights, and colicky babies screaming. That sort of misery, they reason, belongs in the back of the plane. Susan Field, CEO of branding and communications firm Cohn & Wolfe-impactasia, confesses to getting "a little riled if there is a noisy child in business class and I'm trying to work or sleep".

Some airlines are taking note. Malaysian Airlines announced last year that children under 12 would be banned from the top deck of its A380 planes, where the business class is located. With the airline modifying its 747 jets to eliminate bassinets in first class, top-tier passengers who want to fly with their infants will have to figure something else out.