A passenger asking a couple to refrain from changing their baby’s “extremely stinky” diaper on a tray table has been backed by users on Reddit, the online forum.
In a post shared on Reddit’s Am I The A****** (AITA) subforum under the user No_Cartographer8186, the 28-year-old woman said the couple were “changing their baby’s extremely stinky #2 diaper right in the middle of their seats, using the mom’s food tray as a changing table.”
The poster said: “I didn’t say anything the first time, but the second time I heard them go into the diaper bag a couple hours later I asked if they could please go use the plane bathroom instead of exposing everyone on the plane to the smell.”
The mom allegedly “went off” on the poster, saying she “had no idea how stressful it is to travel with an infant, which is true—I don’t have kids,” the poster noted.
Was the passenger being insensitive to the couple?
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Jules Hirst, an etiquette expert and co-author of the book The Power of Civility, told Newsweek that “nobody would disagree” that “traveling with small children is difficult.” However, the woman in the latest post “did nothing wrong” by asking the parents to use the other facilities on board to change their baby’s diaper.
In March 2023, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) received 15,545 complaints (22.3 complaints per 100,000 passengers) from the general public via phone or email, according to the latest Air Travel Consumer Report by the U.S. Department of Transportation, released in May.
While it’s unknown whether these complaints may have included any specifically about passenger etiquette on flights, the report said the TSA received 38 airline-related complaints in March. They included complaints about policy/regulations, baggage requirements, lost baggage and wheelchair assistance.
The 28-year-old passenger in the Reddit post, who was seated behind the couple with the baby, had been on a flight for several hours on the day of the incident.
She is “a really nauseous flyer,” so she took a Dramamine (a brand of medication that prevents and treats motion sickness symptoms such as nausea) and did her best to get some sleep during the flight. “This didn’t happen because of the baby’s crying, but oh well, I know flights are scary and stressful for infants and there was nothing anyone could do about that.”
The passenger said she and the couple were seated at the back of the plane, right by the bathrooms, “which I confirmed had baby changing tables when I had to go back there to throw up after the smell [of the diaper] hit me.”
The flight attendant at the back of the plane agreed with the poster and asked the couple to only use the bathrooms to change their baby. Minutes later, the pilot also made an announcement that “all diaper changing needed to be done in the bathrooms.”
Both parents looked “extremely annoyed,” the poster said.
The Passenger ‘Did Nothing Wrong’
Hirst said: “Having common decency and respect for your fellow passengers is proper etiquette, especially when you know you may be the cause of their poor flight experience.”
She added that “the nauseated passenger did nothing wrong by asking the parents to use the provided facilities to change their baby.” Perhaps the poster could have first asked the flight attendant to handle the matter, Hirst said.
“The pilot’s announcement didn’t help the situation but that is not the passenger’s fault. If the parents had followed proper plane etiquette then this whole episode could have been averted,” the etiquette expert noted.
‘Entitled and Gross’
Several users on Reddit shared messages of support for the original poster.
In a comment that got 8,400 upvotes, user sbinjax said: “NTA [not the a******]. There are changing tables in the bathrooms. That’s what they are for. Also, thank God the maintenance crews disinfect between flights. The thought of eating/drinking off a tray table used as a changing table makes me want to hurl.”
User elvis_wants_a_cookie wrote: “Yeah this is why I always carry disinfectant wipes on the plane with me and the first thing I do when I sit is wipe down every surface I’ll have contact with. People are entitled and gross.”
In a comment that got 2,400 comments, user loopyloo54321 said: “NTA basic rules of baby changing, don’t do it where people eat or where people are in close proximity. If you have a choice, always use the changing tables.”
User amagivictoria said: “…I DO know how stressful it is to fly with kids, but being a parent is not an excuse to be uncivil and rude in public…NTA.”
Newsweek has contacted the original poster for comment via the Reddit messaging system.
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