Comment by throooooo
2 days ago
Flight attendants, like mostly anyone else, have a job to do. Much of their job involves keeping hundreds of people safe at the same time. Not obeying a FA's order is a federal crime and could be a felony.
2 days ago
Flight attendants, like mostly anyone else, have a job to do. Much of their job involves keeping hundreds of people safe at the same time. Not obeying a FA's order is a federal crime and could be a felony.
I am aware of that, and also would politely reply "no" to being asked to wake my baby up for no good reason. It is extremely unlikely that this would lead to a felony conviction. It would make the flight attendant's life harder, which I would lament, but being politely told "no" by a parent is not the kind of uncooperative disruption that the laws around obedience to flight attendants are designed to avoid. This is not the same kind of problem as running up and down the aisles yelling and being disruptive.
Having said all that, if I thought I could get the baby out of the sling without waking them up, I'd probably try that first though. (I'm pretty sure most flight attendants aren't enforcing this silly rule to begin with, because I'm pretty sure I would have experienced it if they were, I used these slings / carriers all the time, including on planes.)
> It is extremely unlikely that this would lead to a felony conviction
Uh, you'd be surprised. Once you refuse, they are going to insist, and if you still refuse to comply, or they're going to return to the gate and have your ass removed. They don't pick and choose which rules to enforce.
And yes, they do enforce this rule. We experienced it all the time when my son was a baby.
I doubt this. I mean, to begin with, on landing there is no way to "return to the gate". Prior to landing, it seems very plausible that a flight attendant would come by and ask me to take my sleeping baby out. I may make politely decline or make some movements to suggest I'm going to do that, without waking the baby up. It is possible that the flight attendant would then stand there until it actually happens. Maybe, but this seems unlikely to me. My experience is not, in fact, strict enforcement of all these silly rules. Some of them - tray tables and seat backs for instance - yes, others - seat belts and electronic devices for instance - no.
If the flight attendant did stand there, I would probably wait for awhile for them to decide to move on. I would certainly not become angry or loud or aggressive (definitely a bad move). If they really can't let it slide, I'd probably stop being stubborn at that point. But an initial polite "no" seems like a reasonable battle to pick even so.
2 replies →
a flight attendant was annoyed that my diaper bag was in front of feet instead of in front of my feet by 3 more inches. While feeding a fussy baby as a parent traveling alone, with no hands free, I gave then a look of "are you serious?"...while I proceedes to make my daughter cry quite a bit to shove the bag a bit more.
Just being a flight attendant doesn't make them great humans to be around.
Yes I know they aren't always great, but they're still people with tough jobs and I don't want to make their lives harder. But we're also all people and I'm very skeptical of this "everyone is a robot who must enforce and comply with silly rules in their entirety" mindset.
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