I was just finished talking about HOW HARD it must be for parents flying with babies in anything but private jets (ha!), when I saw a video from JetBlue.
Apparently, on a recent cross-country flight, JetBlue awarded passengers 25% off their next flight every time a baby cried. If four babies cried during the flight, every passenger on board would get a free flight. So, you can imagine that the reaction to a crying baby was totally flipped on its head.
Unfortunately, this was just a one-time thing to create a promotional video for Mother’s Day, so don’t start borrowing babies to take on your next trip just yet. The real point is, everybody is happier when new parents are supported and applauded even at 36,000 feet.
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Such a shame it was merely a Mother’s Day gimmick for a SINGLE flight from JFK to Long Beach. But it looks like JetBlue’s marketing department were confident that the long-term social media benefits (Exhibit A: this blog post 🙂 ) would outweigh the costs of that flight:
http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/how-jetblue-achieved-impossible-getting-passengers-love-it-when-babies-cry-171179
… but don’t you wish you were on that flight…?
Is it terrible that I may have considered pinching my little darling if I were on that flight? 🙂 I mean, hypothetically, of course!
As someone who has flown with little ones, this brought tears to my eyes. Unless you have experienced it, there is no way to understand the stress of flying with babies. I once chose to drive alone 16 hours each way with my then almost 3 year old and 18 month old because it was less stressfu thsn flying! Even without the hope of a free flight, I have encountered some good people on flights who didn’t look or act like they’d rather be anywhere than next to us.
Bonus points for even more stress – flying with a child with food allergies and they have to annouce that no peanuts will be served on the flight.
I was just finished talking about HOW HARD it must be for parents flying with babies