aaupgrade

Correct, or more accurately their frequency, hence the reason I moved to Etymotics noise isolating ear buds years ago and threw away my QC and QC2. Nice thing is they take up much less space, no batteries required, and I can comfortably sleep on my side while wearing them.

Antarius

If there are unruly kids screaming or throwing a tantrum and the parents are doing nothing/sleeping, I wake them up or get in their face about it.The aircraft is not their house and the rest of us certainly don't need to deal with it. This is only in the case of negligent parents - if you have a young kid who's crying and the parents are trying their best, it sucks for everyone, but they are trying.

The parents who are so shameless to drink and relax while their children throw a tantrum and run around are usually oblivious to the stink eye and passive treatment. I have found best results to be direct. No different than a DYKWIA type making a stink loudly or a drunk fool fighting with the FA.

To the OP - AA definitely will not compensate you. JAL most likely won't. Next time, rather than waiting, say something to the parents.

Lakeviewsteve

Beautiful babies aren't the only ones prone to making noise. I was on an AF flight from DTW to CDG in J. There were two elderly loud mouth American tourists seated behind me. She started complaining to the FA about nothing, even before the flight left. He must have gotten up 10 times during the night using my seat for support. (He should have used the arm rests on his own seat for support). He and his wife had their lights on all night. They were the only ones in the cabin with their lights on. She kept talking and talking to him but you could tell he wasn't listening or didn't care. He kept reading the same newspaper over and over and crinkling the pages. They were both acting like very rude idiots. After he used my seat for support for the 8th time I got up and and started shaking the back of his seat telling him very loudly this is how it feels when people shake seats like you do. They didn't apologize and continued with their tantrum until CDG.

bhomburg

MH still does not allow infants in First Class, yes (no bassinets), though anyone older than 2 is welcome there. And their F cabin on the new A350s has only 4 seats (the 8-seat A380s are slated to be removed from the fleet), not exactly family-friendly to begin with... They also have a 'soft' policy to keep the A380 upper deck economy cabin devoid of children if possible. This works surprisingly well.

econometrics

OP should start flying Thai... on one of their 2 787-9's.

https://viewfromthewing.boardingarea...usiness-class/

ijgordon

Ah, so any paying customer is welcome.

ibrandsguest

My solutions?
* Bose Quiet Comfort headphones plus earplugs
* Addressing the parents during the flight (or at whatever time that the child isn't behaving)

I have no problem with going up to someone and saying, "If you could keep the noise level down, I'd appreciate it" (referring to them needing to get their kid to stop crying). Sometimes the parent might think I'm a jerk, but try to be super-polite about it and it's tough to find fault.

mvoight

On this flight, I doubt the parents just wanted to sit there and listen to the kid crying for the whole flight,

george 3

While on a JFK-LHR flight (772 so 2-3-2) in J a few years ago, a woman was seated behind us with her two young children (perhaps 5 and 7) with her husband in F. After dinner was served, the father came back to check on everyone before cabin lights were dimmed and sleep time began before returning to his seat. After about 45 minutes or so, the 7 year old started crying uncontrollably, waking pretty much everyone up. The mother did nothing to calm him but sat there mortified. Stress level rising in J. When the boy began kicking the seat in front of him, the man sitting next to my wife turned and told his mother to calm him down. She just stared away, even more mortified. After another few minutes of relentless kicking, the man got up and went to First Class to get the father. After some back and forth (voices relatively calm) between the passenger and the father, ultimately the father came back and sternly told the boy to "cut the ----" in his native language. And that was that. Since I had my headphones on and was dozing prior to this occurring, I wasn't sure if the FAs became involved. However, sometimes you have to calmly take matters into your own hands. I've actually seen passengers offer to hold crying babies if nothing just to give the parent a few minutes to decompress, which while not required, is a nice thing to do.

doctear

Earplugs are travel must-have. They work wonders.

DCP2016

I actually wish I heard more crying babies, I am getting tired of these idiots travelling with their comfort rats (sorry, "dogs", although they are closer to rats) that just cry/yip the entire time. On my last flight despite the FA ordering them to put the dog in the carrier for takeoff/landing the lady just held the dog. On the way out the FA made a snarky remark to her, I thanked the FA and sent in a compliment/letter of thanks for the FA.

nrr

Most of what you note is worthy of criticism, but the light issue is NOT. Not everyone likes to (or can) sleep on planes--they may prefer to read.

henry999

Yes, we were -- but thank luck we did not all have selfish parents who took us on airplanes before we were ready for it, just because it was public transportation and they could.

There was a great episode of M.A.S.H. where Hawkeye was having nightmares involving (if I recall correctly) squawking chickens. He went to the shrink and they did a memory regression, tracing the problem back to an incident where he had been on a hidden bus that was in imminent danger of being discovered by a North Korean patrol. Some Korean women on that bus had less choice than Sophie. Brilliant television.

gradboozer

That's exactly the case--it's public transportation. Babies cry, it's a fact of life. If the parents are doing everything they can to calm the baby and you are still of this mindset, you should just fly private.

deeruck

I'm pretty sure most parents don't take babies on flights just because they can. They do it because they need to be somewhere where the stress of flying with an infant is outweighed by the utility of getting there in a reasonable time. No one does it for fun.