Crying for attention

Have you ever taken a long haul flight and throughout the journey had to ensure a  crying baby? Or even on a short flight?

It has happened to most of us at some point of time or the other. Most of the times, we all just keep quiet, grim faced, ruing our fate and try to remind ourselves to be tolerant, after all we were also babies one day and there are babies in our homes too!

But on long haul flights, that’s seriously a lot to ask for, a lot of tolerance. And this is a BIG issue in Japan where as such babies are comparatively lower in count yet tolerance is even lower.

Keeping this in mind, Japan Airlines (JAL) has introduced a baby mapping tool on their online booking facility. This tool shows where toddlers will be seated so that passengers can choose their seats accordingly.

JAL has stated in its website that when passengers travelling with kids aged between eight days to two years, chose their seat, a baby icon will appear on the seat selected by them. But the baby icon will not be appearing if one books the ticket from a third party site or belongs to a tour group.

Another Japanese airline called All Nippon too came up with a baby mapping tool for a while but later discontinued.

There was a lot of reaction to this, with many praising this while many rebuking the airline. But the best probably was this one on Twitter, going by the name of Chickpea, saying, “Excellent idea. Friend of mine recently sat next to a screaming brat for NINE HOURS. Parents did nothing at all. I’d have slapped it but he’s more tolerant than me.”