NEED TO KNOW
- An airline traveler says a fellow passenger was livid that she booked a business class seat for herself and her 9-month-old baby
- She said that the other traveler told her ‘babies don’t belong in business class’
- The woman shared her story on Reddit, where she asked others to weigh in on the appropriate travel etiquette
A traveler says a fellow passenger scolded her for booking a business class seat for her and her baby, and she’s unsure who’s in the wrong.
The woman detailed her experience on the popular Reddit forum “Am I the A——?”, a place where Redditors can go to seek advice on interpersonal dilemmas. In her post, she said that she recently flew from New York City to Zurich with her 9-month-old daughter.
“It was a red-eye, so I figured I had some points to burn and I booked a business class [seat] … so both of us would be able to get some sleep,” she explained.
However, she said that one of her fellow travelers was not pleased.
“A woman comes to take the seat next to me and I hear her say pretty loudly ‘Are you kidding me?’ ” the Redditor said.
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The original poster (OP) said that the flight took off and her baby slept for three hours, at which point she woke up hungry and cried for about “two minutes” before she received a bottle.
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“This woman next to me, who had been sleeping, flies up, proceeds to give me the finger and stomps over to the flight attendant deck where she loudly tells them that I need to be ‘put in economy’ ” the (OP) wrote.
“When she comes back, she tells me that babies don’t belong in business class and if I can’t ‘control my infant’ I shouldn’t be there,” she added.
The Reddit user said she told the woman that she should “fly her a– private” if she wanted to have total control over who she sits next to on a plane, and they didn’t speak for the remainder of the flight.
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The OP said she later told her mother-in-law about the incident, and the older woman said she agreed with the irate plane passenger, claiming that “it’s an unspoken rule that if you’re flying with a child, you should fly economy.”
“I think this is absurd,” the OP said. “Why should I be in economy if I don’t have to be just because I have a baby? That seems insane to me.”
“AITA [am I the a——]?” she asked at the end of her post.
The vast majority of Reddit users assured the OP that she was not unreasonable to have booked a luxury seat for herself and her baby — and said that, if anything, the other woman was out of touch.
“Honestly, [in] my opinion … if you’re travelling long haul in this day and age without noise cancelling headphones, that’s on you,” one person said.
Someone else wrote, “I had a guy give me the worst stink eye when I came onto a flight with a baby. Baby was quiet, and the guy snored like an industrial machine the entire time.”
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The same person added, “There are 8 billion people on the planet. We’re going to have to hang out with each other once in a while. Even babies, and even on planes.”
“NTA [not the a——]. Business class is about getting more comfortable seats and nicer food. It’s not about not having to sit next to a baby. That spoiled rich woman can deal with it just like everyone else,” added another person.
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