Baby Horror Stories in Flight–Or Not

Everyone has a story about an experience on a plane with a crying baby piercing eardrums at 33,000 feet. My old pal Paul Shoul experienced what may be the most baby-filled flight in the world one year when he flew to Taipei, Taiwan on an assignment for GoNOMAD.com

The Taiwanese often like to come to the US and have their babies but then bring them back en masse by plane the following month. So there was photographer Paul, on a 20-hour flight sitting in economy with at least 20 babies in various stages of crying, vomiting, and generally making his life miserable. It wound up being the worst flight of his life…it would make me never want to get on a plane again, at least one bound for Taiwan in December.

My daughter told me a story yesterday about her friend, the mother of a very ‘challenging’ 2 year old. They were to board a plane in Los Angeles, to make a flight up to Portland. The kid was throwing a tantrum. So bad, he couldn’t be calmed down….when the attendants called the passengers to board, they refused to let her on with the kid.

“Unless you calm him down, you can’t get on the plane,” they told her. So they had to sit for two and a half hours and wait for another flight. And they almost were refused entry on this one too, but by a minor miracle the kid stopped bawling, and they were allowed to board. Nightmare!