While I truly sympathize with all the passengers of the flight I can totally relate to the parents.

I was traveling alone to Indonesia from ATL for the first time with my son who was then only 8 months old just last year. The first leg of the flight from ATL-ICN went smoothly. He was sleeping most of the time. After a good night rest in Korea, we boarded for our next flight (7 hours long) and he has been fussing since even before we boarded although he was normally fine in the morning before our flight. I was well prepared in regards to toys, books, etc but nothing can calm him down. He cried and cried and cried 85% of the time and I was mortified. I felt so helpless I cried silently with him too. Fortunately, the other passengers were really kind to us and even tried to cheer him up although that too failed miserably. The FA was brilliant as one of them even went so far as held a cup for me so I can drink because I can’t even do anything trying to hold him and calm him down. The next day after we arrived, I saw the reason of his total melt down…a top tooth popped out and I strongly believe it was the culprit of the most horrifying flight we ever had so far.

International flights with kids is not easy and sometimes there are situations that’s beyond the parents control such as a teething baby like mine did. What happened changed my perspective of parents flying with baby/toddler especially if they’re traveling alone.

We’re getting ready for another international flight now that my son is 22 months old and I’m getting nervous again although we’ve been flying a lot since that first horrible flight LOL.