‘Babies Don’t Belong in Business Class’ — Passenger Tries To Get a Mom Downgraded Over Two Minutes of Crying

A mother flying business class with her nine-month-old says her seatmate snapped after just two minutes of crying — even urging the crew to downgrade her to economy. The confrontation reignites which travelers actually belong in premium cabins, and what can parents reasonably do to keep flights calm for everyone on board?

A woman flying New York to Zurich overnight with her 9-month-old baby used points to upgrade to business class and looked forward to both of them sleeping. She thought that would reduce the impact on passengers around her. And she came prepared: bottles prepped, toys, and a plan to keep the baby quiet.

There were also several other babies and young children in the cabin, which made her feel better. She wasn’t the only one ‘disturbing’ passengers around her.

However, a woman arrived at at the seat beside her, saw the baby, and exclaimed:

Are you kidding me?

The flight takes off. The baby sleeps for about three hours. Then the baby wakes up hungry, cries for roughly two minutes while mom is getting a bottle together. That’s when the seatmate “Flies up,” gives the mom the finger, marches to the galley and loudly tells the flight attendants the mom and baby need to be “put in economy.” When she returns to her seat, she tells the mom:

Babies don’t belong in business class. If you can’t ‘control your infant’ you shouldn’t be here.

The mom replies that she’s doing her best and the woman can, “with all due respect, f- off, and if she didn’t want the roulette of who she sat next to on a commercial flight she could fly her a– private.” After that, the seatmate puts on headphones and doesn’t speak to her for the rest of the flight.

Flight attendants backed the mom up. They reportedly tell the angry passenger it’s a public plane, anyone who pays for a seat is entitled to sit there, and there are babies in first class as well.

After the trip, the mom tells her mother-in-law, who actually agreed with the hostile passenger – babies shouldn’t be in business class, and that it’s an “unspoken rule” that if you’re flying with a child, you should fly economy. The mother-in-law is wrong.

• if you bought/paid for the seat (cash or points), you belong there, baby or not.
  
• there are plenty of misbehaving adults and well-behaved kids
  
• kids disturing passengers in economy isn’t actually better
  
• you can’t demand someone be “put in economy” because you don’t like their age/noise potential

There’s a lot a parent can do to minimize noise. In this case the baby wasn’t completely silent the whole flight, but it sounds like things went pretty well overall. My daughter used to go 15 hours without a peep at six months old. My son takes a lot more work. Here are the 13 key elements of our approach to travel with young kids:

1. Know the newborn vs infant sweet spot. Newborns are easy if you stay ahead of needs: sleep, feed, change, move them when they’re uncomfortable.

   The sweet spot for long-haul is roughly 3 – 9 months, when they still sleep a ton and aren’t trying to climb everywhere yet.

2. Feed fast, on-demand. Be ready to feed immediately when they start to fuss, especially on takeoff/early in the flight.

   If bottle-feeding, have bottles prepped and use the baby liquid exemption to bring all the water you actually need through security so you’re not scrambling onboard, or collect the water from a flight attendant in advance.

3. Pack more activities than you think you need. For toddlers, assume very short attention spans and plan to keep switching activities: small toys, books, simple games. The job is constant rotation so they never get to the bored phase.

4. Snacks are your second line of defense. Don’t rely on the airline’s catering. Bring lots of familiar, easy snacks and be comfortable basically using them as bribes to keep up blood sugar and mood level.

5. Buy space when you can. Business class is actually good here. Use miles and cash offers to get more space, or consider an extra seat. Space means less climbing over other people, easier movement, and more room to entertain the kid.

6. Proactively choose the right seats. Prioritize bulkheads/bassinet positions on long-haul when available. Make absolutely sure you’re seated together, and for many kids, give them the window so they’re not trying to crawl across strangers to see out.

7. Time flights around their sleep, not yours. Aim to take off near bedtime so the plane’s white noise works in your favor. For short-haul, fly midday. Avoid brutal early-morning or very late flights that blow up their sleep schedule and trigger meltdowns.

8. Break up big trips. I deliberately overnighted on trips to Bora Bora, Australia, and Europe with a baby. Even Hawaii! Grabbing a hotel room rather than pushing them through two long flights keeps them fresh and functional and reduces the chance of a midjourney meltdown.

9. Recreate the bedtime routine on the plane. Treat the cabin like home, with pajamas and teeth brushing in the lav, then the same books and stories sequence you use at home so they recognize “oh, now it’s sleep time.”

10. Unlimited tablet time. This may be controversial to some but flights are loved because normal screen time rules don’t apply. Don’t rely on the wifi. Preload age-appropriate contents in advance. Age-appropriate headphones are a must.

11. Use movement strategically. When it’s allowed, walk the aisles with them, change their environment, and even play with them in the lav for a bit to break up the monotony.

12. Visibly parent when things go wrong. Other passengers mostly get it if a baby cries, as long as you’re obviously trying: feeding, walking, soothing, rotating toys, adjusting seats, etc.

    What sets people off is parents who check out and stop responding while everyone else takes the noise. So err on the side of active, even “performative,” effort so people see you working the problem.

13. Assume crying has a cause, and think through responses in advance. Crying means hunger, fatigue, discomfort, pressure, boredom. “If it’s X, I try A/B/C; if that fails, I move, feed, walk, or reset.” That way you’re not improvising in panic at 35,000 feet.

Business class isn’t a child-free zone, and two minutes of fussing isn’t a crisis. The real question isn’t whether babies belong up front, but whether the adults around them can manage the occasional reality of shared travel. But it’s still incumbent on parents to… parent, as best they can under the circumstances.