You'll Applaud This Mom Who Stood Up to a Flight Attendant Who Said Crying Babies Were "Unacceptable"

By Murphy Moroney
Flickr user InSapphoWeTrust
Flickr user InSapphoWeTrust

While on a United flight from Sydney to San Francisco with her husband and 8-month-old son, Krupa Patel Bala was told by a flight attendant named Linda that having a baby cry for more than five minutes was "absolutely unacceptable." As any mom can imagine, that conversation didn't exactly go swimmingly. In fact, Krupa was so taken aback by what Linda told her, she splurged on in-flight WiFi at $28.99 to live post what went down.

"I'm traveling with my husband and 8-month old son and we purchased business class seats with a bassinet for the baby," Krupa wrote on Facebook. "Now, I don't really know what's wrong with my baby, but he tends to cry from time to time. I hear that's common with newborns but this is my only child, so I could be mistaken. After about five minutes of the baby crying in the bassinet, Linda (the flight attendant manager who is also our server and the purser) came over and *yelled* at my husband [that] it was 'absolutely unacceptable' for the baby to cry."

Letting that conversation play out in your head is cringeworthy enough. However, things actually got worse after Krupa asked Linda to revisit the topic again. Linda told the super-stressed-out mom that they'd have to talk further in economy class and ushered her to the rear of the plane. That's when Linda made a few "points" about bringing babies on planes that make us want to smash our computers:

  • "I should have given the baby his bottle back." (He'd finished it but that doesn't seem to be an important detail in Linda's book.)
  • "I shouldn't have tried to put him to sleep because the lights weren't down and he's 'obviously' too excited." (OK Linda, whatever you say.)
  • "Some airlines don't even allow babies in business class." (When I asked if United was one of those airlines, she said clearly it wasn't but that the baby needed to be quiet. So, I guess silent babies are allowed to fly in business class.)
  • "Babies are not allowed to cry for more than five minutes and (This part was yelled) it REALLY STRESSED THE CREW OUT." (Funny; it also really stresses me out when the baby cries . . . oh, and we asked a few other crew members if we disturbed them and they had zero idea what we were talking about.)

Infuriated, Krupa returned to her seat, logged onto the internet, and posted a detailed account of what happened to United's Facebook page, vowing to never fly on the airline again. She then continued to update her readers on the situation, and yes, her posts are pretty rich.

Here's the message Krupa originally left on United's Facebook wall:

Krupa was quick to point out that Linda could've handled the situation much better. "She could have asked us to walk the baby around, tactfully shared that it was starting to disturb passengers, or really ANYTHING with a smile that acknowledged that we weren't out to make everyone (including us) suffer," she wrote. "Her response to that was to tell me that it didn't matter because it was just unacceptable for the baby to cry and as the parent, I need to control him."

This update confirms that Linda is, in fact, a fibber:

After getting chewed out by Linda, Krupa and her husband decided to peek at the rule book to see if what Linda was saying was actually true. Turns out, not surprisingly, it's not against any rule for a baby to cry for more than five minutes.

Unfortunately for Krupa's family, Linda never admitted to any wrongdoing. After speaking with the captain, Krupa gave Linda the chance to apologize, and it definitely didn't go as planned. "So, in short, here's what we know: Linda lied," Krupa wrote. "She knows we know she lied. She still won't apologize. She continues to humiliate us on this airplane."

Krupa's final update, sharing that customer service was meeting her family at the gate:

Apparently, United was quick to respond to Krupa's post and said they'd have a customer service representative meet her at the gate once she landed in San Francisco.

Despite Krupa's unsettling experience with Linda, she was quick to reassure other parents in the comments that Linda was an outlier. "Linda is the anomaly," she wrote. "We've flown nearly a dozen times with [our son] where he's been anything but silent and no one even batted an eye."