AIBU to be upset about rude plane passenger

[Willowtree88]

My partner and I have just come back from a last minute holiday with our 18 months old son. We flew out to Spain (3.5 hours flight) for a couple a days to get away together as a family after an extremely stressful few months. Due to a combination of my work contract being suddenly not-renewed, planning for a second maternity leave in a few months and some illness in the family we have been forced to sell our much-loved family home and move in with my mother. This is a massive emotional and financial upheaval for us all and we wanted to enjoy a much-needed break as a family. We had a wonderful trip (despite the usual exhaustion of being on holiday with a toddler).

When we got on the bus to the plane, it was almost empty and so I took the opportunity to sit on one of the seats with my toddler in his pram. An older couple got on after us and proceeded to (loudly) call me rude for feeling entitled to sit down. Bear in mind that I was there first, the seat was empty and there were plenty of others, I am heavily pregnant and have painful sciatica (not that this should matter). Either way, I asked the couple if they would like to sit, but they either didn’t hear me or pretended not to. Anyway, I chalked this up to airport frustrations and we board the plane and get settled into our seats. Everything is calm and my son is happily reading his books on my husband’s lap. The couple from the bus get on and (again loudly) grumble that ‘they’re sat right behind us, typical’ as they settle into the row in front of us. They then proceed to have a conversation about whether they should ask to be moved away from the child. I am getting a bit irritated by this point as it seems to be that the only offence we have committed is simply existing with a child in a public place, but I decide to not let it bother me. I also completely appreciate that people may have had difficult experiences with small children on planes or just not want to be seated next to children and are entitled to their opinions.

I had confidence in my son’s ability to manage a short flight with no fuss (because he has done so multiple times in the past) and my partner and I’s ability to support him to manage in the case that he needed it. My son has always been a wonderful traveller and my partner and I are always prepared with all the things he needs to be comfortable and be as entertained as possible whilst on board. We are highly aware of our responsibility to manage his needs and work hard to minimise disruption to other passengers whilst meeting them. We are lucky that my son has never cried or fussed on a flight and didn’t on this one.

As far as I was concerned, my son was being a delightful passenger. He played peek a boo with me, he coloured, he ate his lunch and he read his books. At one point he took an interest in the cup holder on the seat in front and pulled this down. After he did this twice, my partner stopped him doing this by distracting him with a game, not before I saw the man in the seat in front literally wincing and telling his wife ‘see, I’m going to say something.’ In fact, every time my son spoke ( I’m taking saying the word ‘snack,’ ‘peppa’ for his cuddly toy or repeating words in the book) the man would physically wince. His wife would then tell him to ‘leave it, just leave it.’ Well he didn’t leave it. About 30 mins into the flight I got up to go to the toilet and when I got back into my seat my son asked for a cuddle (he’s quite clingy with me at the moment). As I hauled my pregnant body and son back into our cramped window seat I accidentally knocked the seat in front of me with my elbow. The man in front immediately turned around and said to me quite aggressively ‘I’m only going to say this once, keep your fcking child from kicking my seat and shut them up whilst you’re at it.’ I was absolutely shocked and tried to explain that it was me who’d knocked his seat, not my son, that it had been an accident and that I wasn’t aware he’d been making any noise but I’d happily stop him the best I could if he did. The man interrupted and told me that I was an irresponsible parent and shouldn’t have a child on the plane if I can’t ‘control it.’ My partner was really annoyed at this point and defended me by saying that my son hadn’t been kicking his chair and he didn’t feel it was appropriate to talk to me like that. The man got completely irate at this and threatened to ‘fck up’ my partner when he got to the airport. He even raised his elbow as if going to hit him until another passenger stepped in to tell him to calm down.

I was really upset so I asked the flight attendant if we could be moved elsewhere which they thankfully accommodated really quickly. However, for the rest of the flight I could hear the couple loudly complaining about us and our ‘entitlement’ and how this wouldn’t have happened if I had put my child in his own seat (he’s under 2 so legally has to sit on my lap). I have never experienced this attitude from other people before when being out and about with my child and it really shook me up. I’ve been going over and over in my head what I could have done differently to stop things from escalating the way they did but it’s really knocked my
confidence about taking my son on experiences like this, particularly on my own. Maybe it’s just the pregnancy hormones making me feel more vulnerable than usual.

I know this is a heated area and I totally
understand the agony of being on long flights with distressed and bored kids ( I used to fly multiple times a year for business and have witnessed some really awful meltdowns from passengers and kids) but I can’t help but feel we were singled out just simply because we had a child. Some of my childless friends have questioned whether or not I'm just immune to my child’s irritating noises but he was honestly reading books, watching a programme or sleeping for the entire flight. I can understand if I was being irresponsible and thoughtless towards others but I don’t feel that I was and doesn’t my child have a right to talk and interact with his family just as much as anyone else on the flight?

[ConfessionsOfAMumDramaQueen]

He's a prick. Even if you had a teething baby that screamed half the flight you had a right to bring him and he just needed to suck it up. Best one I saw was a couple getting irate at the number of hyperactive kids on a flight from glasgow to orlando .... hmmm I wonder why!

[RaRaRaspoutine]

I assume police will be involved at some point? He cannot be allowed to get away with it. Nasty fucker.

[lieselotte]

@ConfessionsOfAMumDramaQueen

He's a prick. Even if you had a teething baby that screamed half the flight you had a right to bring him and he just needed to suck it up. Best one I saw was a couple getting irate at the number of hyperactive kids on a flight from glasgow to orlando .... hmmm I wonder why!

[notimagain]

@Soontobe60

They were being twattish. If they threatened you, the flight crew should have responded and I would have expected security to have spoken to them on landing.
however, your post is full of completely irrelevant detail! Keep it short and to the point!!!

Agreed...

TBH if this wasn't taken in hand/reported at the time by the cabin crew as disruptive passenger behaviour, independent eyewitness reports/details obtained and (into the UK) police involved immediately on arrival I suspect it's going to be difficult to pursue this much further.

[RaRaRaspoutine]

@Pineconederby

You should have accidentally spilled a drink on him - whoops.

Yeah a nice hot one...

[Tessasanderson]

Take a breath. Realize that you are considerate of others and you and your family have done nothing wrong at all. Now don't give it another moment of head space.

Maybe allow yourself a slight moment to consider this grumpy fucker will one day act like this to someone who has equally bad anger issues and will end up in a lot of pain and trouble. Let horrible people ruin other horrible peoples lives, not yours.

[Pismascrescents]

Some people can’t handle their emotions. If you know you did nothing wrong, let it go. If it wasn’t you, it would have been someone else. Some people bond by slagging everyone else off and their righteousness (no matter how wrong they are).

[TheaBrandt]

There’s a brilliant scene in Better Things where the experienced late 40s mum of teens deals with a man been horrible to a young mum on a plane

[TheaBrandt]

Being

[DillonPanthersTexas]

Some people are just rude and horrible.

Pretty much sums things up.

Years ago I was working on the offshore rigs in Angola when I got news that my grandfather had suddenly passed away and I had to get myself back to Ireland for the funeral. They don't mess about timewise with catholic funerals and usually everything is wrapped up within a few days so I had to get back as soon as possible. At the time there was only a few direct flights from Luanda to Lisbon a week so I had to be creative and flexible to get back to Limerick. Cue helicopter from the rig, flight from Luanda to Lagos, Lagos to Casablanca, Casablanca to London and finally London to Shannon. I got to London after nearly 24 hours of travelling on rattling old planes and sitting in crumbling 3rd world airport terminals and I was absolutely shattered. I got on my Aer Lingus flight, sat in my window seat, popped my headphones on and promptly fell fast asleep before the plane had pushed back. I was then woken up by a women shaking my arm "Can you swap seats with my husband please so we can sit together as a family" Me, somewhat dazed and in no small part annoyed "what" I say - "Can you move" she insists - it was a demand rather then a polite request. I might have been more accommodating if it was a parent and two young children, but I was being evicted for her adult husband who was more then capable of enduring a one hour flight on his own. The final straw was when she tilted her head at me in a 'off you go' manner. "Can you just fuck off. No, I am not moving, I have just spent 24 hours travelling 4500 miles from the Lower Congo basin to be here, I am shattered, please don't disturb me again" - she then started huffing and puffing and moaning about how inconsiderate I was and generally holding up other passengers still boarding before being told to sit down by cabin crew. She was still moaning at the other end as we walked through baggage reclaim. She got even more annoyed at the car hire desk as I had priority status via my company so got served first before her while she gave me a poundshop death stare.

[Catspyjamas17]

@Mariposista

Some parents of young children are absolute pains in the arse on flights or trains and their unruly children spoil it for everyone. They obviously saw you with a kid and assumed you would be the same. Yet you weren’t, it sounds like you did everything right, so this is just their prejudice and not you fault. Don’t give it any more thought.

And some older people are absolutely pains in the arse on flights, drinking too much, being rude to staff and other passengers or their grumpy misanthropy spoils it for everyone.

We could all see an older couple and assume they will be the same as the OP experienced, but I hope most of us don't. Prejudice is wrong.

[StoneofDestiny]

You should have shut down the rude person immediately - just tell him to remove his rude carcass away from your child as you don't want him learning bad manners from him.

[MassiveWordSalad]

I think you should try and take comfort in the fact that, whilst they made your plane journey unnecessarily miserable, they are no doubt living their entire lives in misery.

[LikeTearsInRain]

What a nasty older couple they should know better

[5128gap]

@Catspyjamas17

And some older people are absolutely pains in the arse on flights, drinking too much, being rude to staff and other passengers or their grumpy misanthropy spoils it for everyone.

We could all see an older couple and assume they will be the same as the OP experienced, but I hope most of us don't. Prejudice is wrong.

Tbf, the incidences of small children being a nuisance on flights are significantly greater than of older couples.
I think its safe to say there's far more chance of getting your seat repeatedly kicked or enduring hours of crying and grizzling than there is of Derek and Joan marauding drunkenly down the aisle starting rows with random passengers and swearing at the crew. So it's a somewhat false comparison.
And I say this as someone who has flown with my children from babies.

[Mariposista]

@Catspyjamas17

And some older people are absolutely pains in the arse on flights, drinking too much, being rude to staff and other passengers or their grumpy misanthropy spoils it for everyone.

We could all see an older couple and assume they will be the same as the OP experienced, but I hope most of us don't. Prejudice is wrong.

Any type of profiling is really isn't it? Like why is it that so many single male travellers will get random stop searched? I'd have given OP the benefit of the doubt, especially after she offered to stand up on the bus straight away.

[dragonbreaths]

I've been on a flight from Auckland to Singapore with EIGHT youngs babies within arm's length. And like an adult, I put on my noise cancellation earphones and sucked it up. Because life happens

[Candlesoftime]

Sounds horrible. He clearly has an issue with children. Why would they complain about a heavily pregnant woman sitting down? Especially if there were other seats. This, and the fact they threatened to fck your OH up - they clearly have issues. Sounds like nothing they you did was in the wrong.

Things can really get under your skin sometimes, but please just remember it's their issue to deal with, not yours.

[Seasonofthewitch83]

You did nothing wrong.

Pity them, for they will die unloved and miserable.

[dcut]

They were awful.
And even if, say, they really needed the seat on the bus (which they didn't because there were other seats free) they could have asked politely.
If your child had been disturbing them - eg. shrieking too loudly, pulling on the chair etc. they could have asked you politely to get him to stop. They could have also asked a flight attendant politely if they could move somewhere else.
There is no need to launch into a load of fucks.

Also, there are things you can do when booking seats to minimize the "risk" of having a child behind you kicking the seat etc - if you're able to choose your seat online, choose one in the row in front of the emergency exit rows as children can't sit there. That stops any potential kicking.
However, when travelling, you have to accept that you are crammed into a small space with other travellers and that some of them are going to be annoying - whether that's a child making a noise, drunks, people who don't smell that fresh.
You can also take some steps yourself to make the journey more pleasant - noise cancelling headphones, choosing seats wisely, and I put Vick's Vaporub on my upper lip just before boarding the plane because I've had a couple of unpleasant experiences sitting next to people who hadn't washed for a while...

[Fireflybaby]

I hope the rude couple gor salmonella the day they arrived in Spain and didn't get to enjoy their holiday at all then on the flight back I hope they were surrounded by screaming children on the plane...
They definitely deserve it.

[KimberleyClark]

YANBU at all, you did nothing wrong. Horrible couple.

[Butchyrestingface]

How old would you say this couple were, @Willowtree88 ?

There's been a fair few ageist remarks about older people on this thread, even though you never stated their ages (that I saw).

If you are in your 20s or early 30s, then 'older' to you could be anything over 35.

[hiccup123]

My goodness, that sounds horrible. We just flew with DD of 7 months a couple of days ago, and unfortunately she was not as good a traveller as your son is!

She had to be distracted the whole way through, no sleeping at all, we played with all of her toys, bottle, snacks, Cocomelon (without headphones, but barely audible, to be honest, even for us). Then time to land came about and she started crying histerically, it was also one of those times where the plane keeps going round the airport for ages, so we couldn't stand up, cuddle her, nothing. Cue me singing my whole repertoire to calm her down (and failed).

We were in the front row, so there wasn't any kicking, but the woman sitting next to me wasn't impressed from the moment we got on the plane. She didn't say anything though, not at all, because she was a normal, civilised, understanding, polite human being. Was she happy about having to share row with a screaming baby after paying extra for her seat? No! Neither would I, but she played games on her iPad and probably had a good story to tell once she got to her destination.

All this to say, that man was a prick and you did absolutely nothing wrong.

[woodhill]

So sorry OP

What nasty people you encountered

Yanbu