Babies On A Plane!

For all my travelling, I can just remember three baby-related flights in a premium class that really annoyed me: The first was in December 1995 on a Swissair flight from Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania to Zurich. I was supposed to have been on the British Airways flight (to London) the day before but the flight was cancelled due to a bomb scare or something and they put us on the Swissair flight the next day. (I was a Gold member of the British Airways Executive Club at the time -- so BA was happy to lose the revenue from my flight in exchange for my future loyalty.) I remember sitting at a window bulkhead seat and having a mother with a newborn child sit down soon thereafter next to me. My first thought was that this was going to be a very long flight and I would be trapped. I immediately got up to change my seat. I know the mother was irritated at my sudden departure but I didn't see the point of suffering needlessly for such a long flight. The second time was more recently on 3 January 2014 on a United Airlines Newark-San Diego nonstop. in first class. The flight left just shy of 3 hours late because of a crew issue. (A blizzard had also dumped a ton of snow the day before on Newark -- but that didn't seem to be related to the delay.) I was in the second row and there was a set of parents with their child in the first row in front of me. The child screamed all the time and the parents made zero effort to quiet the child for virtually the entire flight (5 hours or so). The same thing happened (except it was 2 or 3 children) on a Turkish Airlines business class flight from Istanbul to JFK in October of 2014 (which is about a 10 hour flight). These kids screamed for more than half the flight. Actually, when I pre-selected a seat the night before for that flight, I noted that there was a baby bassinet in the first row on the right side of the business class cabin. So, I thought I was being very clever to select a seat in the the row on the left side of the cabin -- only to discover additional kids in front of me and to my side once I sat down. So, I have the following firmly-held beliefs: (1) Children under the age of 5 should not be allowed in premium class cabins. By the time children are in Kindergarten, they have generally learned how to socialize and how to have an "indoor" voice and an "outdoor" voice. (2) Flight Attendants MUST take more proactive care to ensure that crying children get the attention they need so as to stop crying. This can be as simple as teaching the parent(s) how to clear the child's Eustachian Tube (http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/blocked-eustachian-tubes-topic-overview) -- and offering, as age appropriate, a piece of hard candy, some gum, or even some iced chamomile tea to put in a baby bottle. (3) If a parent is ignoring their children's constant crying, I will no longer hesitate to intervene with the parents (politely, at least the first time) to make similar suggestions to (2) above. There is no societal norm that forbids me from doing this (although I may first shame the stewardesses into doing this in the first instance as I did on the Turkish Airlines flight). (4) I now make it a point to carry several bags of chamomile tea with me so that the flight attendant can make some chilled/iced chamomile tea for the bottle of a crying baby. This was because on the aforementioned United First Class flight I was shocked to learn that the catering cutbacks had included chamomile tea.

My son has been flying regularly since 1 and he has pretty good in-flight manner since he was 2 and half. He loves flying and always look forward to travel on the airplane. I have had absolutely no problem flying with him on business class. That said, I am going to avoid bringing my younger son into business class until he is 2.5 (the age that they can be reasoned and can spend a lot of time on an iPad). My tip is getting them mentally prepared for the flight. I read him a book called "my plane trip" as bed time story before every flight. Bring something for them to chew or suck on (such as Apple sauce) during take off and landing. Bring iPad with a kids size headset.

I really don't want to get into the whole debate about toddler/children in premium cabins but as someone else mentioned- the comment where you opened the bathroom door to discover a woman in there but still proceeded seemingly unfazed to get paper towels had me rolling It kind of reminded of how one night when I was in my 20's, after a relatively tame night out of a couple of pitchers of beer, 25 cent chicken wings and a hockey game, I was spending the night on my friend's sofa bed, while her and her now husband were sleeping in their bedroom. Suddenly, I see the apartment door open up and I see a tall shadowy figure come in. At first I thought that maybe my friends DH had went down to the vending machine in their building's lobby to get a midnight snack but when the person came and sat down on the bed next to me, in the darkness I could vaguely make out long hair. I assumed then, it had to be my friend; so I said her name but got a intelligible response and the person got up and went around the corner. A few second later, my friend comes into the living room and franticly switches on the lights and asked me if I just came in the apartment...Well, I sit up and start to scream no, but I know that someone did because I saw them come in. She then starts yelling at her old man to get up and that there was someone in the bathroom. All I could think to do was to pull the covers over my halfway over my head and yell instructions "Get a knife from the kitchen, Call 911". My friend's husband gingerly pushed open the bathroom door which was left unlocked and slightly ajar. And low and behold, there is some strange drunk girl, sitting on the toilet taking what I assume was a piss. So my friends DH- says.."You got the wrong apartment" -and the drunk girl say..."Ooooooooohhhhhhhhh", gets up- WASHES HER HANDS...then stumbles out the door and leaves. I don't know what shocked me more- the fact that it happened or that the girl had audacity to worry about hygiene and just not get the F out. ( Please don't think that was a passive aggressive dig at you , I swear it wasn't... if anything your tale gave me the insight into what the heck are folks thinking or not thinking when they still proceed :D)

Let ME just start by saying, I am opposed to having babies/toddlers in premium cabins...And I have approached parents w/ poorly behaving children on Intl F class flights before...

I was flying F from Miami to Heathrow a few years ago on the redeye. Whilst sat in 2A, some parents got on board with their baby and took up one of the centre seats. As you'll be aware, there's quite a large gap between aisle seats, yet I was still able to hear the guy in 2B say under his breathe "for f*** sake" at the sight of seeing a baby, knowing what was in store for him. I never once heard anything from the baby the entire flight, so can't complain.