Crying toddler gets 'first class' service on American Airlines flight, father shares story on LinkedIn

American Airlines' flight attendants try to keep Todd Lagerberg's 17-month-old son entertained during the 3.5 hour flight. (Image credit: LinkedIn)

Todd Lagerberg, a senior content producer with LinkedIn in the US, was on an American Airlines flight from  Northwest Arkansas to Los Angeles with his family last week when his 17-month-old son had a temper tantrum.

The toddler refused to stay put with Lagerberg and his wife and that's when two of the flight attendants stepped in. They entertained the child for about 30 minutes during the 3.5 hour flight and ensured that the passengers, including the Lagerberg family, had a good flying experience.

Thanking the flight attendants, Lagerberg narrated the incident in a LinkedIn post which went viral and gathered over 77,000 likes.

Here's what the grateful father wrote:

Several people appreciated the commendable work by the flight attendants. Personal development coach from Texas Dennis Brinkley said, "Definitely above and beyond customer service. Flying with infants and young children is no easy manner. I flew the red eye from Hawaii to LAX so that my young son would be inclined to sleep during the flight."

Sravanthi Medepalli, who works with Wipro in Hyderabad, pointed out, "If the baby had continued to cry, it would have disturbed the other passengers and created a Disturbed journey for everyone - all the efforts that the Organization has taken for a Happy Customer would have been wasted. It's a great gesture by the flight attendants."

She added that the flight attendants were outstanding in calming the baby and relieving the anxiety of the parents. "They should be empowered to do so and rewarded for their "Customer First" service by their organisations," Medepalli said.

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Others on LinkedIn shared similar incidents involving children in flights. Among them, Richard Nelson, a Senior Estimator at Rogers Electric in Georgia, recounted an incident when he was having lunch with a co-worker at a local Mexican restaurant and a woman had allegedly made unhelpful remarks at two young mothers one of which was having trouble calming her infant.

"She said purposely loud enough for everyone to hear 'I think it is terrible that they let parents bring small children in hear and ruin lunch for everyone.' You could see the pain on the young moms face," Nelson wrote.

"Having small kids of my own at the time I could not resist responding, 'I think it is terrible that they let cranky old ladies who complain about babies in here and ruin lunch for everyone else.' I will never forget that moment. Now I am a cranky old man but I will never complain about a young child doing what young children sometimes do," he added.

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