child in lap of parent during flight
Mayukh Saha
Mayukh Saha
January 3, 2024 ·  2 min read

Angry Father Slams Flight Attendant For Refusing To Let His Baby Sit In Empty Seat

A furious parent has slammed flight attendants of an American Airlines flight after they refused to let him place his baby in an empty seat beside his wife. Matt Tolhurst, the parent in question, had been traveling with his wife and their baby. At some point, his wife had to pump breast milk. As luck would have it, there was a conveniently placed empty seat beside her. There, she placed her child and continued with her task. However, the cabin crew of this flight informed her that she wasn’t allowed to utilize this vacant seat. As such, she actually had to hold on to her baby while pumping breast milk at the same time. This, naturally, infuriated the father. He slammed the crew on Twitter by asking, “Did AA1592 flight attendants get bad news today?

Father Slams Flight Attendants In An Infuriated Tweet

He further commented, “Did they have to be blunt and rude to my wife who placed our 4-month-old son on an empty seat next to her while she was pumping, demanding she holds him because she hadn’t paid for the empty seat?” When the incident took place, the plane was cruising along quite nicely and the seatbelt signs hadn’t been switched on. Nevertheless, the cabin crew insisted that she wasn’t allowed to use this seat simply because she hadn’t reserved it. It didn’t matter that she was using it for a pretty innocuous reason. The father added, “Flight was in the air, the seatbelt sign was off, and the seat next to her was empty. The flight attendant came through and told her off for placing him on the seat while she pumped… she had to hold him.

Read: Man Shares Horrendous ’29 Hour Flight’ With Kids Screaming For The Entire Flight

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Matt’s infuriated rant about the flight attendants of American Airlines got the necessary traction. The official social media correspondent for the company responded, “Rudeness has no place in one’s travels, and we’re sorry if a different impression has been made.” The policy of the airline also seemed to suggest that one could use an empty seat to place a baby who was being carried on laps. The policy stated, “To carry on a safety seat, you must have bought a seat for the child, or a seat must be available next to you. If an unoccupied, adjoining seat is not available, the gate agent will check the safety seat to your final destination.

In a similar strain of thought, a woman flying from Las Vegas with her husband refused to move when another woman asked her to shift so that she could place her child beside her. Although the woman in question, Michelle, did look for a seat and also asked the flight attendants for help, there were no seats available so she had to refuse. On social media, people commended her course of action and stated that if the mother wanted to place her child beside her, she should also have purchased the other seat.

Keep Reading: Parents slammed for letting daughter run wild during 8 hour flight flight

H/t The Sun