In a recent post, I noted that Air Canada's policies that restricted seat selection might leave some other adult sitting next to, and by default, taking care of your kid on a flight. I also noted that might not be so bad, for you, the parent. Now while Air Canada's approach seems somewhat strange (asking parents for money to sit next to their kids), there was the hint of an opportunity here. Sometimes parents might pay good money to not to sit next to their kids.
Enter Nanny in the Clouds, a service that caters for just that [HT: Dean Karlin]. This is a web service that allows parents to identify other adults on a flight who might take care of their kids. And if you are the sort of person who wouldn't mind taking care of someone's kids on a flight, the service lets you signal your availability. All going well, if you find a match, a price is negotiated, Nanny in the Clouds gets $10, and everyone is happy.
There are several interesting issues associated with this idea. Basically, Nanny in the Clouds is creating a labor market where none currently exists.
- Audio-animatronic versions of Mary Poppins and Bert in The Great Movie Ride. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
That's a good idea but it is really only going to work if its liquid -- that is, if there are lots of people registered and matches can be made. In the best scenario, one entrepreneurial nanny is able to claim a couple of rows of seats at the back of the plane and earn money from the flight. Indeed, people might actually be able to justify flying just to offer nanny services. There could be something there but, as Dean Karlin points out, surely then it would make sense for airlines rather than a third party service to offer to broker some deals. After all, they routinely try to facilitate 'exchanges' between passengers when flights are over-booked.
But there is another problem. Let's consider for the moment, who is going to want this service? Now some well-off parents already have nannies for which airline duty is part of the deal. So this is probably for a lower income tier. The best opportunity is for situations where the parents want to sit in business or first class and leave the children back in coach. And if we add to the mix a long-haul flight, the gains from trade seem enormous. In that world, this market will work well indeed.
That, however, is not the only type parent that might find this opportunity worth the trouble and money. Specifically, the parents of 'lemons' might find this worthwhile. The term 'lemon' here refers to used cars that are of poor quality. So if you are a buyer of a used car, you are worried about getting a lemon. So too if you are a potential supplier of cloud-based nanny services. The whole deal may be worthwhile if a child just needs to be supervised but might otherwise happily take care of themselves or, more generally, behave well. But it could be very costly indeed for the nanny if the child is a 'lemon' which could include poor behavior or alternatively being a poor flyer. It would be hard for would be nannies to negotiate air sickness contingent pricing.
The problem, of course, is that parents know their children and so if you, as a nanny, priced in the risk of getting a lemon, parents of good children will not take the deal and you will just be left with lemons. To be sure, there may be gains from trade here but it is also the case that the market is thinner as a result and might take a while to sort itself out. Nanny in the Cloud could help by allowing parents to rate nannies but also nannies to rate children. But I suspect that last part might be somewhat controversial.
It would be interesting to see how this works. Alas, I have both stingy and have children who, at least on flights, aren't lemons. So I won't be availing myself of the service. But for anyone who does, the comment forum here is open for stories of your experiences.
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