I was recently on a flight to San Diego to see my fiancee who is stationed there. With the airline’s budget the way it is now, our flight was completely booked. I had a seat towards the rear of the plane, and that is where a new cultural experience started.
A Middle Eastern family of 14 were to be seated in my general vicinity. Of the 14, 6 were under the age of 10 (that in itself is no fun). My flight was delayed for almost an hour because numbers must not be universal. The family was not able to determine which seats they were suppose to be in, and the only one in the whole group that spoke English was disabled in a wheelchair and sat up front. Anyway, the patriarch of the family was putting the family into seats which weren’t theirs. The attendants tried to get the tickets from him, and he was a ticket short. They ended up deciding one was supposed to be a lap child, but the youngest child was at least 4yrs old. One of the children was seated next to me in the middle seat. Unfortunately none of the children wanted to stay in their seats, and 2 other passengers at this point were completely without seats since this family had taken their seats over. FINALLY the attendants managed to get everyone a seat, but the passengers refused to keep the child that was suppose to be on their lap there and wanted one of the other children on their lap (crazy people since the other child was much bigger).
After some more arguing and the attendants telling everyone to be seated, my flight finally took off for San Diego. In the end, I made it to San Diego, the children made the 6hr flight only mostly miserable, and we were only 1hr and 30minutes late. On the bright side, I did get to see my fiancee after he had been out to sea for 6months.
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Whatever, all passengers over the age of 2 have to be in their own seat with their own seatbelt. The flight attendants would have a problem with a 4 year old as a lap child and the pilots would not legally be able to take off. I think you exagerated my friend.