Segregated Planes Cause Uproar, and Quite a Few Cheers

Meet the new second class citizens of the skies. BABIES.

News recently broke about Malaysian Airlines banning babies from planes. Quite a few things rushed through my mind:

• Wait—so babies are considered a threat to international security and must be banned? They’ve got infant terrorists, now?!
• I thought of that horrid film, Snakes on a Plane, and I could imagine babies crawling from the overhead storage bins and clinging to passengers’ necks. Creepy as hell yet so funny…
• This baby ban article must be an April Fool’s prank, right?

All of my thoughts were incorrect. The news report clarifies that babies are not being banned completely from the airlines. They simply aren’t permitted in first class on many of their long distance jets. Babies will be permitted on the planes in business and economy class.

From that angle, the new rule seems a bit more realistic, yet I’m still irked by its implications. First class flyers can’t be bothered with babies but business and economy class patrons shouldn’t mind the additional nuisance? Don’t we have enough problems of our own? Zero leg room, barely enough shoulder room, crappy food, tiny bathrooms, narrow aisle and consistently inconsistent storage bins make flying a pain already. Not to mention that we’ve got our own fair share of wailing babies. Now we’re getting shafted with the first class brats, too?

The edict openly places babies in a wretched class of their own. People with body odor, incessant chatters, snorers, and fidgeters are still allowed on every class of the airline. Babies, though, are a nuisance that cannot and should not be tolerated by high-paying customers.