Airlines Learn Business Travelers and Squirming Kids Don’t Mix : Transportation: Carriers consider various options to keep families and full-paying adults separated.

Finance executive Mark Sanders carries Batman and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers coloring books in his briefcase on business trips.

Sanders doesn’t scribble his way through long flights, but the super-heroes come in handy if a rambunctious youngster is seated nearby. Placating a fidgety flier and getting some peace and quiet is well worth the risk that a box of crayons might spill out of his briefcase during a business meeting.

“It’s the best $10 investment I’ve ever made. . . . It gives the kid something to do and the rest of the passengers breathe a sigh of relief,” Sanders said.

The holidays bring some of the busiest travel days of the year for airlines. That means children in the air. It means parents trying to entertain wiggly youngsters, and business travelers sometimes having to play peekaboo all the way to Chicago.

As families have become more far-flung, a trip to grandmother’s for the holidays is quite a bit more involved than the fabled jaunt over the river and through the woods. Perhaps making matters worse, airlines have reduced the size of their fleets, leaving fewer empty seats and packing business fliers and traveling families closer together.

Plenty of children are good fliers and some are lulled to sleep by the rumble of the engines. And many of their fellow travelers are tolerant of the occasional outburst.

But for the business traveler planning a nap or a little work on the trip, the sight of innocent youth in the next seat might not be very heartwarming. Worse, there’s the child who runs up and down the aisle or thinks the tray table behind your seat is a drum.

“The screaming, the hollering and the yelling and being back in the middle of that mess. . . . Traveling has lost a lot of its luster, especially with kids,” said salesman and frequent flier Bobby Finken.

Youngsters snap your eyeshades for laughs and can’t seem to get over the wonders of reclining seats. Flight attendant Anita Potter recalls the happy face painted on the head of a bald man sleeping in front of one little artist.

Being prepared as parents and preparing children for the trip can go a long way.

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Older children should be involved in the travel plans and parents should tell them what to expect. Establish firm rules before the trip so it’s easier to enforce them in flight. Bring along something the child can play with in a confined space.

For babies, pack at least two bottles that can be given on takeoff and landing to help clear their ears when cabin pressure changes. Pack the diaper bag full of food, toys, wipes, clothing changes and other essentials.

“Children are only as good as the parents are,” said Potter, who’s also the mother of a well-traveled 4-month-old. “If the child is good, it’s because his or her parents have taken the time to prepare the child for the adventure.”

A poll conducted for the Air Transport Assn. showed that one in six respondents said they traveled with a minor last year. The respondents were more likely to have flown with a youngster 6 to 12 years old than any other age group.

But many younger children fly, especially as families take advantage of the many discounted fares available. The federal government says airlines can’t require a ticket for children younger than 2 years old, but many parents buy a ticket for the baby and strap in a car seat.

Airlines try to help make it easier for people flying with children, but not at the expense of business travelers, who typically pay some of the highest fares.

If a family is particularly uncomfortable in coach and there is plenty of room in business class, a Lufthansa spokesman said the flight attendants will sometimes let the family move to the roomier quarters. But a spokesman says it isn’t done easily because business-class passengers who paid around $2,500 for their seats might object.

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Carriers have also looked at the idea of trying to keep families and business travelers separated. Several options are being considered by some big U.S. airlines--from a separate family section to putting up a curtain between the passengers who pay full fare and those flying on a discount.

None of the ideas has been implemented so far, however, because many would be impractical.

United Airlines decided against setting up a separate family section because parents sometimes show up unexpectedly with a baby who doesn’t need a ticket. Reshuffling the seating to get the baby into a family section could easily delay boarding and the flight, spokesman Joe Hopkins said.

Also, such a separate section might be considered discriminatory.

Some airlines are thinking about ways to give more privacy to passengers who pay the full coach fare--typically business travelers--by setting aside a separate section of the coach cabin.

With nine in 10 travelers using some sort of discount, it would only be a row or two on most airplanes--something carriers might not want to attract too much attention to.

Some business travelers don’t like the idea, either.

“They might as well put up a sign: ‘This is the Sucker Section,’ ” Finken said.