That's the question raised by the debut last week of Air AsiaX (the long-haul arm of Air Asia) new "Quiet Zone". The first 7 rows of its economy class are strictly for those over the age of 12. For some reason, that translates to "quiet" in the minds of airline execs and some passengers. (Ha! Wait until a drunken passenger or a chatty Kathy books one of those seats. But I digress...).

For the privilege of sitting in the youngster-free area, passengers pay an additional $11 to $35 (the variance has to do with the amount of leg room offered.)

Now, I can see how booking the first three or four rows of this section might make sense to particularly sensitive travelers. But in the seventh row? Well, you're just as likely to have a kid kicking the back of your chair as you are in the cheap seats.

It'll be interesting to see if this experiment works out for the airline.