On Friday August 25, I flew with my five-month-old son Roy to Sydney on Qantas flight 404. By the time I got off the flight I was crying my eyes out. Here’s why.
I flew to Sydney with a girlfriend, who was travelling with a two year old. So in the sense that she also had her hands full and couldn’t help me with Roy, I was travelling solo.
I walked onto the flight and found my seat. Like a magician, a male flight attendant appeared in front of me with a flourish, grabbed my handbag from my arm and started putting it into the overhead locker, all while making googly eyes at Roy and cooing noises.
Now to wedge us into our seat and hope the person sitting next to us didn’t spend the entire flight tsking and sucking air through their teeth.
The gent sitting in the seat next to mine looked up, looked at Roy, looked at me, and immediately said, “Do you need help?” I said that we’d be OK and tucked us into our seat. He looked up from his Kindle again and said, “I have three kids. You just tell me if you need me to do anything, anything at all, OK?”. I thanked him profusely and focussed on getting Roy onto the boob.
The male flight attendant again materialised with pillows and bottles of water. He tucked Roy’s nappy-bag under the seat in front of us and squeezed the pillow under Roy, which wasn’t easy because of the lack of room between Roy and seat in front of us.
Almost immediately, the woman sitting in the seat in front of me leaned forward, arched around and offered to swap seats (she was in the front row and had a lot of leg room). Astonished, I looked at her and declined because it would mean Roy’s nappy bag would have to go above us instead of at arm’s reach, but again, I thanked her profusely.
Top Comments
This is lovely but isnt this is what SHOULD happen to everyone on every flight we get such bad customer service these days that when we actually get good service its like a miracle! Well done to these staff ... good to know there are wonderful people out there that want to provide exceptional service :)
I just yesterday had 16 hours in transit with Singapore airlines, first flight by myself with a 7 month old and I was so scared, but everyone was wonderful! The airline staff were great, but also the other people on the plane were so lovely.
I was terrified as he is a pretty boisterous baby, and you hear so many things about people complaining about babies on planes - but everyone was really sweet. The man next to me was talking to my baby. When he started crying I walked him up the aisle cuddling him to calm him and every single person was smiling at me. Made me feel so much better, and I think me feeling calm also helped as my baby then fell soundly asleep for the rest of the flight!