Israel:Couple leave baby behind after refusing to buy ticket

[Opti]

I read in the not so distant past that a family left behind their dog to make a flight which I thought was horrible enough. This is on a whole other level of entitlement that confuses me. Does this mean these are the types of people who abandon or beat their young children? I wonder what posters think ... and I am shocked the authorities returned the child to the parents.


metro.co.uk/2023/02/01/israel-couple-leave-baby-at-check-in-after-refusing-to-buy-ticket-18201374


Intending to fly Ryanair with their child, the parents were asked by staff to pay for a ticket for the baby yesterday, according to the Israeli news outlet Mako.



This sparked a scuffle at Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, with the parents refusing to pay for a boarding pass for their baby for the flight to Brussels, Belgium.



According to Ryanair, people travelling with an infant can either pay around £25 for a lap seat or can buy a separate seat for the child at a standard adult fare.

State aviation officials told Mako that the couple appeared anxious to get through security – with or without their baby.



‘The couple arrived late for the flight after the flight’s check-in counters had closed,’ the Israeli Airports Authority said.



‘The couple left the basket with the baby and wanted to board towards the security check-in Terminal One to get to the departure gate,’ the authority said.



The authority said that a shift manager for QAS, which handles services at Ben-Gurion, ‘took the couple back to the flight counters to take the baby and called the police and a security guard’.

[bean29]

Was it really their child?  Could they have refused to buy the ticket b/c they did not have the proper identification?

Hence, they tried to get the hell out of there?

I don't know think I know anyone that would abandon their child.

[billisonboard]

I read about this yesterday  (Couple leave ticketless baby at Israeli airport check-in) on the CNN website. It has a bit different tone than the article in the OP. I always wonder about stories written with the clear intent to create an emotional response. This could be a story about horrible human beings or incredibly frazzled/exhausted young parents. Hard to know with certainty.

[Opti]

Bean29, I did wonder about that, but haven't seen anything further on the identity of the child.

[Tiny]

The article I read  indicated that the couple had not gone very far from the child - NOT that this excuses their behavior.  And that they returned to the child rather quickly.  They weren't arrested or ticketed or anything by security/police - Not that this excuses their behavior. 

I'm wondering if this was one of those things where the person(s) keeping track of the baby were distracted/tired (they were late for their flight) and made a very bad decision in the heat of the moment.  

At least they didn't leave their kid in the car (to die from cold or heat).  At least they didn't leave their kid with the family dog(s) (which might have attacked the child). 

I'm hoping this was a wake up call for the couple and will prevent them from a future mistake (that doesn't end well). 

[Opti]

Feb 2, 2023 9:59:10 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

I read about this yesterday  (Couple leave ticketless baby at Israeli airport check-in) on the CNN website. It has a bit different tone than the article in the OP. I always wonder about stories written with the clear intent to create an emotional response. This could be a story about horrible human beings or incredibly frazzled/exhausted young parents. Hard to know with certainty.

Like the dog story, these parents did not buy a ticket beforehand for the child and refused to do so when asked to. Frazzled or not, they were planning to abandon a baby in Israel's airport and fly to Belgium. I think they came back because they were not allowed to board the flight, they were too late, not because they suddenly remembered maybe we should take the baby with us.

MO. Yes, its possible they were loopy with lack of sleep, but its scary that if they had been just a touch earlier, they may have boarded the flight and left the child behind.

[billisonboard]

How many exhausted parenting couples haven't looked at each other and said,  "I thought you had the kid".

[billisonboard]

Feb 2, 2023 10:06:47 GMT -5 Opti said:

Feb 2, 2023 9:59:10 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

I read about this yesterday  (Couple leave ticketless baby at Israeli airport check-in) on the CNN website. It has a bit different tone than the article in the OP. I always wonder about stories written with the clear intent to create an emotional response. This could be a story about horrible human beings or incredibly frazzled/exhausted young parents. Hard to know with certainty.

Like the dog story, these parents did not buy a ticket beforehand for the child and refused to do so when asked to. Frazzled or not, they were planning to abandon a baby in Israel's airport and fly to Belgium. 

Seems to me to be a poor plan. Far greater chance of success setting it down in an airport restaurant or duty-free shop and walking away from it before boarding a flight.

[Opti]

Feb 2, 2023 10:08:05 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

How many exhausted parenting couples haven't looked at each other and said,  "I thought you had the kid".

I'm sure this happens and locally hopefully it rarely leads to child abandonment. But this couple literally made no plans to pay for the baby to fly and did not correct that mistake when it was brought up. A lap ticket would have been 27$ US according to one article. 

I'd love to hear their side of the story. Did they really have an idea to rush back to the child if they could convince boarding to hold the plane? IDK.

[Opti]

Feb 2, 2023 10:14:46 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Feb 2, 2023 10:06:47 GMT -5 Opti said:

Like the dog story, these parents did not buy a ticket beforehand for the child and refused to do so when asked to. Frazzled or not, they were planning to abandon a baby in Israel's airport and fly to Belgium. 

Seems to me to be a poor plan. Far greater chance of success setting it down in an airport restaurant or duty-free shop and walking away from it before boarding a flight.

I don't think their plan was to fly out and abandon the baby. It just reminds me of the dog story, where apparently the owner felt it was too inconvenient to correct their lack of planning and just left the dog behind and made their fight. 

And unfortunately, none of the reporting I've read gives one any idea how close the desk was where the baby was left to where the boarding gate was. That would help too. The video looks very different than what I know of US airports so no help there.


www.bing.com/videos/search?q=parents+abandon+baby+at+israel+airport&docid=13931741914543&mid=94B0402CBB8B5C7E605E94B0402CBB8B5C7E605E&view=detail&FORM=VIRE

[billisonboard]

Feb 2, 2023 10:06:47 GMT -5 Opti said:

... they were planning to abandon a baby in Israel's airport and fly to Belgium. ...

Feb 2, 2023 10:37:16 GMT -5 Opti said:

... I don't think their plan was to fly out and abandon the baby. ...

I'm confused.

[Spellbound454]

The fact that the child was returned to its parents with no charges .... appears to suggest there was a misunderstanding.

[Opti]

Feb 2, 2023 10:52:01 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Feb 2, 2023 10:06:47 GMT -5 Opti said:

... they were planning to abandon a baby in Israel's airport and fly to Belgium. ...

Feb 2, 2023 10:37:16 GMT -5 Opti said:

... I don't think their plan was to fly out and abandon the baby. ...

I'm confused.

I don't think they came to the airport with the plan to fly out and abandon the baby at the airport. I think they left the baby behind trying to catch the flight and were more concerned making the flight themselves than making the flight with all three of them. 

[billisonboard]

Feb 2, 2023 13:51:46 GMT -5 Opti said:

Feb 2, 2023 10:52:01 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

I'm confused.

I don't think they came to the airport with the plan to fly out and abandon the baby at the airport. I think they left the baby behind trying to catch the flight and were more concerned making the flight themselves than making the flight with all three of them. 

Thanks for responding.

[thyme4change]

Feb 2, 2023 10:08:05 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

How many exhausted parenting couples haven't looked at each other and said,  "I thought you had the kid".

All of them.

[NastyWoman]

Keeeeeeeviiin!!!

And   to what Thyme said

[giramomma]

 I haven't read the article.

This is one of those things that I would not pass judgement on.

For the first 13 months of the peanut's life, she was up every two hours and she insisted to be held while she slept.

DH and I did every other night duty.

For 13 months, I was up 30+hours a day a couple of times a week. I slept for 3-5 hours "a night", broken up.

Thankfully I only had to work 60+ hour weeks for 8 of those 13 months.

It got so I refused to drive in anything more than an inch of snow with the kids. When school year rolled around (Sept, the peanut was about 5 months old), I made the kids do role call in the car before we left the house and after I dropped the peanut off at the sitters but before I dropped the older two off at school,

My older two thought it was hilarious that I told them to answer for the peanut in funny voices. They had no idea how scared I was of something going wrong.

My diet was mostly candy and energy drinks to keep me awake.

I did *everything* expected of me. Even got a merit raise at work.

It took me another 11 months to be able to sleep 6 hours straight at night once the peanut slept through the night.

After being sleep deprived like that for 6/7 months, the first thing out of my mouth was, OMG. I totally see how babies can be accidentally left somewhere.

And, yes we tried "sleep training" the peanut. I gave in after she screamed like her arm was being cut off without anesthesia for an hour.  All of the gentle sleep solutions talk about fussing it out for 15-20 minutes, not ignoring quite literally blood curdling screams for an hour.