Hey mum, let's upgrade to first class

If you've coughed upwards of £3,000 for a first-class flight to Australia, would you mind sitting next to a baby? I ask because we've just got back from a Big Family Adventure to the southern hemisphere. The paterfamilias is not only workaholic, but plane-phobic, and the only way he was flying half way across the world was strapped tightly to a lie-flat bed with intravenous free champagne - so we splashed out on Upper Class tickets with Virgin for the trip there and back. As my few other experiences of flying business class have always been in entirely child-free cabins, I was slightly concerned that our two noisy, fidgety, excitable boys wouldn't be welcomed by the other high-flying passengers. My pre-flight hours were filled with visions of them spilling orange juice over some managing director's laptop.

So it was a relief to find that ours were not the only under-12s on board. Far from it: babies, toddlers and slouchy teenagers took up around 15 per cent of the cabin's seats. In fact, the word from the cockpit is that all the major airlines have seen an increase in children occupying higher-fare seats, particularly on routes to popular family destinations such as Orlando and Miami.

Having done it once, I can see why. Most airline business lounges offer free snacks, drinks and internet access, all of which entertains older children during the long wait for boarding. But Virgin's new, Heathrow lounge - The Clubhouse, a trippy, James-Bond-meets-The Aphex-Twin space filled with giant TV screens, water walls and Perspex mezzanines - goes one better, with an open-all-hours brasserie and two dedicated play areas, one stocked with toys for little ones and the other humming with games consoles. We had only half an hour in there, but could happily have spent a lot longer, playing pool and taking massages at the Cowshed spa.

And our 21 hours on board were equally painless. If the Upper Class pods - a reclining, upholstered leather armchair, table and separate foot rest cocooned between two curving walls - are roomy for adults, they are positively Brobdingnagian for a child. Pressing the button to make the seat flip over into a proper flat bed, with a mattress, sheet, duvet and pillow, was almost as much fun as playing on a GameBoy. Larva-like in their free sleepy suits, the children climbed in and slept for 12 hours apiece.

Once they awoke, they worked the in-flight entertainment to the max - about a third of the 30 on-demand movies were for families. And adjusting their body clocks to Oz time was made a lot easier by the non-stop menu. Bacon roll and warm milk at 4.30am? No problem. I barely lifted a finger - other than to order another glass of chardonnay.

The rest of the passengers didn't seem to notice the children in the cabin - apart from one American woman d'un certain âge, who asked to be moved away from a pretty TV presenter travelling solo with her four-month-old baby. As the child - swaddled comfortably in a cot next to its mother - didn't so much as peep for the whole trip, it must have been the prevalence of modern celebrity culture that so disturbed the older lady.

Top tips

Travelling in a cabin with beds will make a long-haul family holiday get off to a much easier start. By holidaying in low season, buying well in advance, and choosing less flexible fares, you can reduce the cost. Just be sure to check the fine print - our tickets were Z-rated, which meant there were several perks we weren't entitled to, such as limos to and from the airport.