Fussy Baby Becomes Collateral Damage in Reclining Seat Melee
Jeff Edwards June 04, 2015
A Jetstar passenger is accused of quickly reclining her seat in an attempt to quiet a small child who was “tapping” on a seat-back tray table.
Some fantasies are better left to the imagination. According to a Sydney Morning Herald report, a mother and 12-month-old child traveling on a Jetstar flight from Sydney Airport (SYD) to Melbourne Airport (MEL) fell victim to another passenger with a reclining seat and poor impulse control. If mom Sunny’s claims are true, baby Lily may be the youngest casualty in the war over reclining airplane seats yet.
Sunny says the passenger seated in front of her infant daughter violently reclined her seat in response to the baby’s playfully tapping on her tray table. “It was really vindictive,” said Sunny. “My impression was she just wanted [Lily] to shut up.” Sunny said she has filed a formal complaint with the airline about the offending passenger.
If the plan was to quiet the infant, then the reclining passenger’s plan backfired. The baby, who Sunny says was hit on the head by the tray table, stopped tapping and began screaming. The outraged mother described the cringe-worthy discourse that followed as such:
“You know you just hit my daughter in the head,” said Sunny.
“Well, we told you to stop that tapping,” replied the reclining passenger’s boyfriend.
At this point, Sunny admits she pushed the reclined seat. The occupant of the seat then allegedly upped the ante, claiming, “I’ve got spinal injuries.”
When the woman’s traveling companion accused Sunny of pushing the seat on purpose, the overwrought mom offered in defense: “Well, you hit my baby on purpose.”
Fussy babies can make a long flight feel much longer, but in this case, it seems that all but one of the fussy babies making noise on the plane were old enough to know better. Flight attendants eventually gave everyone a “time-out” and separated the feuding passengers for the remainder of the flight.
[Photo: Sydney Morning Herald; Jetstar]
i was not there so cannot comment on whether the child was injured. However, I have been on the receiving end of a 10 hour flight with a child kicking, hanging off the seat and screaming behind me. Yes, parents are often frazzled but I am a parent also. If my child was kicking (tapping) the seat in front of me I would have apologized and tried to get him interested in something else. I would have also asked that person in front of me to please let me know if my child was in any way bothering them. I'm sorry but in this day too many parents feel self righteous that their children can do no wrong and everyone is responsible for baby sitting them. If you leave it up to me, I will correct the parent first and if they fail to respond then I will nicely explain to the child what they are doing is wrong.
Maybe if this baby had a father, instead of a mother with a boyfriend, she would be better behaved. I hate unticketed babies on airplanes.
JetStar, horrible pitch. This makes matters worse. I do think reclining too fast is dangerous for laptop, lapchild, or anything on your lap.
"Playfully tapping on tray table?" "Well, we told you to stop that tapping" Oh, my - traveling with a child is not easy - especially when they are this age and difficult to reason with. I doubt very much that the person meant to hurt the child. Probably just aggravated that they asked that the child stop tapping the table and their request was ignored. Mom could have put the tray table up and that would have taken care of it. Instead, she ignored the request.
A reclining seat might have "pushed" the child's head, and might have taken some of the child's space, but it would be very difficult for a seat that reclines about two inches to hurt a child. I suspec the "playful taps" was actually banging her hands on the tray table, and the mother had already been asked to have the child stop.