Flight delays are of course frustrating, and can make tensions among passengers run high. In these situations, is some bonus inflight entertainment a fun way to lighten the mood, or does it just lead to even more frustration?
Continue reading: Should Flight Delays Turn Into Talent Shows? It’s A Divisive Topic…
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Actually I'm going to press the call-bell instead: "Hello FA. Since I'm being forced to sit in a karaoke bar on this delayed flight, please can you bring me a gin and tonic. Thank-you"
Annoying as hell - worst nightmare come true. I’d love to know what Delta and other airlines’ policies are on something like this. I would assume they have one and FAs can’t just decide to put on a talent show whenever they want.
Yeah, definitely don't do that over the PA if you have seatback IFE on the plane. I could understand on Southwest or regional flights where people are just on their devices/have headphones in, but don't brick the IFE system for everybody.
This is a commercial flight, not a talent show. The lack of professionalism of the cabin crew in facilitating and allowing this is unbelivable. Grounds for dismissal, for sure.
Watch is going on here? Nobody but her parents want to listen to that. The crew who allowed this should be grounded for a while. The PA system is not a toy.
Now that nobody reads books anymore, nobody has empathy for readers. "Close your blind so everyone can watch old sitcoms", "girl from seat 97K will sing Gravity now, for 25 minutes", "announcement announcement announcement".
One can try to find a better environment by paying more but it's not always effective. For me, this sort of thing is ultra cringy and adds value to my noise-cancelling earbuds, without which I don't leave home.
"Hell is other people."
-Sartre
Is the person filming the reddit user? Because first class seems pretty far away...
What about equal time to others? For those who don't sung much, they can give a speech, perhaps about how great Trump is, AOC for Prez, and maybe regular Republican and Democratic views. Add to that a speech about Netanyahu or Gaza. Oŕ why Ukraine should be denazified by special military organization.
No, no singing unless a famous talent like Mariah Carey, then only briefly.
Great idea! I might have a go at singing out loudly the next time I’m on a delayed flight. It would be cute, no? Everybody would be entertained, no?
Curmudgeons, incels, generally odious people - who live chronically online because the real world shuns them - don't like the spectacle of a child having a good time. Color me shocked!
To answer the question in the title, no, a flight delay shouldn't turn into a talent show for the express reason that it's an imposition on others' peaceful respite.
However, to actively complain about this, makes one a curmudgeon deserving of cancer. God invented cancer and hell specifically for curmudgeons. I'd take 100 singing children over 1 curmudgeon on any flight even if I've just been awake 40 hours straight working for my client.
Yeah sure, but the topic at hand is not nonsense, it's a child singing. If you're so jaded you can't appreciate the innocence of that, have you thought about dying of cancer?
IMAGINE HOW MISERABLE OF A PERSON YOU HAVE TO BE TO COMPLAIN ABOUT A CHILD SINGING
Lawyers from bottom tier schools at bottom tier firms, yes maybe.
At Skadden Arps, no way.
Off topic, but DL 757s are deplorable. Front row F pax are often about the last people off the plane after the 2L door given how many people they pack into the space between the door and (very tight) F seating. Nothing premium about sitting up front and being among the last people off the plane.
Uhhhh
I guess Delta could institute a policy whereby FAs hold the Y pax until all F pax deplane. Asian carriers do this. But US carriers do not and I see no reason they should start. When the US pretends to have Asian hospitality - or when anybody in general is pretending to be someone they are not - it comes off blatantly fake and offputting. In any case you are never among the last off unless you intentionally dilly dally in your seat. Stop exaggerating. I don't even see law firm associates exaggerate as much as you otherwise they'd be billing 5,000 hours a year.
Arps, many herein complain about a child posting nonsense, even if that child is you Arps, are you calling the whole readership “Miserable”?
…. and I’m going to demand the FA’s give up their AirPods because Ben cannot decide if he should report a “Flight Attendant Safety Violation”.
As an equity partner with a receding hairline I'll take your estimation of my age as a huge compliment.
As to the readership, Aero, I think you are a beautiful man and I love you and your country (London is the second greatest city on earth).
There you go again Arps, demonstrating that you have more patter than the Chinese Army in flip-flops.
However, surprisingly I am about to agree with you Arps …. London is, as you say, the “Second greatest city on earth”. It is actually second only to York! That is the real York Arps, not that foul new wannabe York on the Hudson.
Yikes, 2 minutes of this? I'd be down if there were some SW points involved for the best talent. 10k to the best performance. OnlyFans models stand up!!
You find yourself on a flight to Orlando. Perhaps forced to spend a % of your life savings on line-waiting at Disney. Then this happens. And, not only do you question your life choices but you also wonder if you were somehow involved in mass murder in your previous life.
Absolute torture.
I don't have kids, but it's amazing. All of my friend's children just so happen to be supremely talented baseball/football players, enchanting musicians, expert dancers, and are "way above average" intelligence.
I think when it's your own kid, you think everything they do is great. I'm sure the parents genuinely thought the plane would be entertained. Unfortunately, they probably should have waited to get to Grandma's before they started the performance.
Perhaps they were trying to shake loose some seats for some Delta 360s who had a hot date with Mickey, without having to offer compensation to the proles who'd had enough.
Just kill me now. Places everyone in a position to be rude to children or suffer a unnecessary headache. Maybe both.
Or you know you could sign up for psychotherapy and learn to be more empathetic and tolerant of your fellow human beings especially innocent kids.
I'm not conflicted at all. This is 100% wrong.
Delayed or not, i am entitled to peace and quiet and not forced "entertainment" whether its cute or not. Let me read or sleep or work or just stair ay my iPad in peace. The credit card commercials are bad enough.
Arps I raised five children. I also am highly empathetic. At my husband's funeral wake a Broadway mom wanted her two kids to perform. You go through that and get back to me.
NO. JUST NO.
I'm likely already somewhat annoyed by the delay, so losing myself in my book/movie/nap. This is the last thing I want.
Has nothing to do with this young woman. could be a famous musician.
Just no
Okay your comment is slightly less odious than most others as you acknowledged the young woman is NOT at fault in any way.
But in the rest of your comment all you're talking about is you. You are annoyed. You want x y z.
Cut out this selfish entitlement. Airline travel is public transport. It's not about what YOU want. It's about what people collectively want.
I'm not conflicted at all. This is 100% wrong.
In all my years of practicing law I've never come across a 100% wrong and yet you are here.
Delayed or not, i am entitled to peace and quiet
No you are not. Reread your COC (contract of carriage; although, like your small member, you may need a magnifying glass to see it clearly!)
Your kids are annoying. And untalented. And loud. And quite unpleasant to look at. You can't see it, but the rest of us can. You love them too much to be honest, but we aren't burdened by such a thing.
If I wanted to hear them belting out showtunes, I'd accept your many invitations to their endless season of recitals on Tuesday nights. But on a delayed aircraft, stuck on the tarmac, we'd rather listen to the sounds of an APU whining and a business traveler concealing his farts with fake coughing.
Annoying, untalented, and loud- James, it’s a miracle you’ve remembered the notes from your grade school report card after all these decades.
If you have such a dismal approach to life, I suggest you go to hell.
Rest assured he’d never have matched with such an odious personality as yourself
It would have been so easy for the crew to deal with this situation/request: "Sorry mam, but the aircraft's PA system is for crew use only."
How did this even come to be?
Did the FA ask the girl to sing or did the girl ask the FA to sing?
It's really weird. If i were on the flight I probably wouldn't care, maybe i could use a 2 min distraction. Not the singing itself, but just the whole odd scenario.
And collectively very few people want some random kid singing on a plane so stfu.
On an Air Asia flight from LBJ to DPS last year the crew sang a few songs mid flight, in between service and collecting rubbish. They were great and very entertaining. None were teens. Pretty good for an LCC.
Mike, do you have actual evidence of that, or are you going by the biased self sample of cancer-deserving curmudgeons such as many of the commenters here?
It’s not that they don’t want to hear singing. It’s that they’re complaining about it. Nobody actually wants to hear the singing. But complaining about it is far more odious. Note I didn’t tell someone to die in this particular comment thread, I said “have you thought about”
Good grief, I'd would've hated to be on this delayed flight being forced to listen to a tone deaf PA karaoke 😉
Only if it's a professional group singing recognized Broadway tunes like songs from the Lion King etc.
Children should be seen and not heard.
I'm much more entertained by how much this has triggered our resident "lawyer" Arps. Though I suppose a child pretending to be a lawyer would empathize with a child pretending to be a singer...
I’m working overtime to represent the normal, feeling, empathetic human being who wouldn’t take outward issue with a child singing.
Do I encourage this behavior, no, and if I were a crew member confronted with a request to sing, I’d say as another commenter suggested astutely, “My apologies sir/ma’am, we limit the PA for crew announcements only.”
What I hate far more than this behavior (which I don’t hate at all, I merely discourage), are curmudgeons with room temperature IQs who fancy themselves full of kindness or empathy yet whose assessment of this situation is waaaambulance levels of “I can’t handle the noise! Let me sit out the delay in peace!”
You might think it too harsh for me to wish cancer or death on the most dreadful curmudgeons, but I assure you, this wasn’t my natural behavior. It was learned. A prominent San Francisco venture capitalist once tweeted that an incompetent board of elected officials should “die slow”; the directive I issue to people who deserve cancer is similarly not original. I saw it once and thought, “I’m going to use that myself.”
Great lawyers work off precedent.
"Is this cute and sweet, or annoying?" yes, yes and YES!
Your going to stop my inflight entertainment for this? HELL NO.
Serve drinks and snacks instead.
This has nothing to do with the girl and everything to do with the crew member who authorized this.
Well, I think the answer is NO, reading all the comments.
This is hijacking a captive audience and imposing the desire of a young brat.
And If her voice was nice, but it is not.
As mentioned, a PA system is a working tool for crew members and nothing else.
I am a trained classical musician that has performed various types of music over many years. People that do this not only have no talent, ability to carry a tune, intonation or pitch control, they just plain not good at it. They should stay in their seats and play video games.
Isn't there some sort of rule against this kind of thing or a rule stating the purpose of the PA system. Note that even if you were watching the seatback entertainment you would be interrupted by the PA.