In the news today was the story of a Southwest passenger who could not handle a baby crying and ended up getting his entire flight diverted and him being removed from the airplane. I first read about this over at Live and Let’s Fly, but I see it’s been covered by One Mile at a Time, View from the Wing and other outlets I’m sure.
Southwest Passenger Loses His Mind
A Southwest flight was destined to Fort Lauderdale but had to go into a holding pattern due to weather. At some point a baby starts crying (for a long time) and this man wakes up and starts yelling and screaming about the baby.
The video below was captured by another passenger and is definitely NSFW due to language.
A flight attendant comes over and tells the man “you’re yelling”, to which he responds “So is the baby!”.
The flight attendant then points out that the man was an adult, and therefore more could (and should!) be expected of him. Another passenger points that his screaming is annoying the rest of the passengers, so why was that ok if the baby’s crying wasn’t?
The Sound of a Baby Crying IS ANNOYING
Of course the comment sections of all the articles I read are sharply divided, mostly between people who have kids and those that do not. I mean, I get it – the sound of a baby crying is genetically programmed to be annoying. NOBODY likes hearing a baby cry, but babies are human too and sometimes have to fly (and IMO they have the right to fly). It wasn’t super clear to me how old the child in question was, but as a parent, there’s also a big difference in what you can do to help a baby calm down vs. what you might be able to do with a toddler. It’s also not clear from just the video what steps if any the parents were taking to try and calm down and console the baby.
But again, if you’re a parent, then you know that sometimes it just takes seemingly forever to get a child to calm down. This is even more true when you’re on an airplane and a) may have fewer of the toys, food or other accoutrements that you need and b) you are limited into how much you might be able to walk around and help the baby calm down by rocking it.
One of my earliest memories of flying with kids is when we were going to a family reunion with my daughter (2) and my son (3 months). We were on a late / delayed flight and didn’t get to our destination till around midnight. My son had fallen asleep in the dark airplane cabin, but when we landed and the lights went on, he started screaming. He wouldn’t nurse, wasn’t taking a pacifier and we had used up all our other food / toys – everything else was in our checked bags. He screamed through a LOOOOOOONNNNNNNG deboarding process, made even longer by the fact that we were in the literal last row of the airplane…
What to do about crying babies on airplanes – my take
To me, how annoyed I get when a baby is crying on an airplane is directly correlated to how involved the parents are in trying to calm down the child. If the parents are doing their best to comfort and calm down the child, then it’s still an annoying sound, but I just chalk it up to c’est la vie. Crank up the white noise / noise-cancelling headphones and move on with my life. It’s one of the reasons I am adamantly against any social pressure to make young parents feel obligated to give goodie bags to fellow passengers.
(SEE ALSO: Why parents of children flying should NOT give “airplane goodie bags” to fellow passengers)
In rare cases however, the parent just puts on their own headphones and ignores the crying or bad behavior. Then, I have a much bigger problem with it. Admittedly, I think this is much more common with toddlers and young kids rather than literal infants.
The Bottom Line
A Southwest passenger could not handle a baby crying and ended up getting his entire flight diverted and him being removed from the airplane. I’m not sure why he felt that his yelling and screaming was okay if the baby’s crying was not. Nobody likes to hear babies crying, but I’m not sure this is the best response. My take is that while I don’t like hearing babies or toddlers cry, as long as the parents are doing their best to console or take care of the child, I can accept it. Only when the parents too decide to tune out their child’s crying or bad behavior do I get irritated.
Okay (deep breath) – what do you folks think? Leave your thoughts in the comments (and please try to be civil)
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
I think airlines could do more to educate parents in ways to help their children avoid over pressure in there ears.
Sometimes when I hear kids screaming on the plane it is obvious they are in pain and at that point there’s not much you can do about it
You are absolutely right. In the past flight attendants were proactive took a paper towel, put it under the hot water and put it between two plastic cups. You then remove the paper and put the trapped warm air in each cup NEAR (not touching) the babies ears which equalizes the pressure of the cabin and the babies’ ear drums. Little children’s ears can’t accommodate the change in cabin pressure. This measure works in seconds and the child is no longer in pain, so they fall asleep.
What Jeanette said. yeah, sometimes I will actually jump when a sharp, piercing cry is emitted, but Dear Lord, to pitch a fit yourself….If he had been next to me I probably would havre punched him and you would be starting a Go Fund Me to post my bail 🙂
That is why they make noise cancelling headphones. Grow up Mr. irritated loudmouth!
A few things I’ve observed. Flight attendants do NOTHING these days to help the parents with this situation. Secondly if a parent knows this is going to happen then just drive. Third on some of the most popular flights an airline could offer an adult only flight. We all know kids are human, but they are like a pet. Just because you love them doesn’t mean everyone else does
The baby’s crying isn’t nearly as offensive as the idiot’s language. Hope he gets banned from flying. If you can’t handle what might occur on a flight filled with 200 people (including babies), then drive.
I would prefer snakes on a plane, as opposed to screaming children. My query concerns the fact that drunks on a plane are not tolerated. Nor should they be. Yet out of control screaming, crying or kicking children are fine. Why? The easiest solution would place drunks and screaming kids in the baggage hold. That might enable peace in the air.
tranquilize the kids…just like pets.
A child has a “right to fly,” really? Why is the expectation that society must allow children to fly?
Can they obey ALL the rules and demands of being a flyer? No, they rely on the parent to handle this and are therefore endangered by air travel.
A single parent with 3 children would be able to care for all of them in an emergency? No! Others would be expected to step up at their own risk.
Grandparents and family can come to the child. The child does not need to go to the family!
Safety first should always be the rule, not what people WANT or is convenient. Until able to care for themselves in an emergency or control their behavior they should not fly.
If they did this during an Opera they are removed, or usually isolated in a “parents” room to avoid impacting the rest of those who paid for the event.
Flying is not the family trip in the car. It is using modern technology to move people that has many safety requirements and designs around that technology that assume an adult who can act accordingly.
With adults who have issues flying there are medications for them to be better on the flight. With today’s modern approach that you cannot use medications to help a child, they get to scream their heads off.
So if children have equal rights to fly, why do we have the age of 18 for voting and 16 for consent and 21 for drinking. Society accepts this.
I have seen parents IGNORE the child’s behavior, just letting them go on forever, because they have already LOST the battle of who is the adult.
A mature adult gets this and deals with the issues before exposing society to their self-created drama.
A solution, why not a “parent’s bathroom” on the plane, with sound-proofing for these times?
I always travel and wear noise cancellation head phones. I never hear kids crying or people talking.
I would bet the guy is a little more tolerant in the future. One must ask, “who was the big baby?”
I had an interesting conversation with a United captain sitting next to me in 1st class (he was off duty, enroute to his next assignment), on a flight from SMF to IAH awhile back. There was an infant screaming who could be heard throughout the 737-800, obviously suffering from ear pain. The captain said he could never understand why parents subject their kids to flying instead of driving. He made the point of saying that parents would be arrested for child abuse if they intentionally inflicted pain on their child’s ears on the ground. So why do they get a pass for doing it on an airplane?