Plane passengers divided as mum skips airport queue with baby

2 November 2022, 13:15 | Updated: 2 November 2022, 13:17

A woman has been criticised for skipping the queue. Picture: Getty Images

A woman has asked for advice after admitting to jumping the queue at an airport with her young child.

One mum has divided opinion after she skipped ahead of a long check-in line at an airport with her three-month-old baby.

While she didn’t see anything wrong with her decision to miss the queue, her fellow passengers were outraged.

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Explaining what happened on Mumsnet, the anonymous woman said she was flying for the first time with her husband and their baby to see family.

She said: "We had booked priority, lounges and everything we could to relieve a bit of the stress. Priority queue was quite long to check in luggage and we started queuing nicely.

A woman has been criticised for skipping the airport queue. Picture: Getty Images

“Another mum came along and told us we could jump the queue which we did gladly as baby started stirring a little bit.

"However it enraged some of the people in the queue, literally shouting that it was very out of order and that there was no such thing as baby class, and what is wrong with you people etc. Interestingly, every other step in the airport (security, customs, boarding) we were invited nicely by the staff to jump the queue."

The mum went on to ask is she was being unreasonable and wanted know if it was okay to "jump the queue when with an infant".

This completely divided users, with one writing: "If offered by the person in front of you, fine. But only to take their place. I’d be very annoyed if you went to the front of the queue just because you had a baby."

Someone else agreed: "If invited to by staff, or there's an announcement that those travelling with babies can go to the front, of course you can. If invited to go in front of someone else, of course you can. Otherwise, of course not. Even if a randomer tells you to."

The mum went on to clarify that she thought the staff had said it was okay for her to go to the front, adding: "The other mum (also with an infant) told us the staff said it is ok to jump the queue and so told us to follow her.

"Then the shouting happened, but in the end an airline lady at the check in counter invited us to jump the queue. I was just a little bit taken aback it would trigger some proper shouting from other travellers."

Someone else defended her: "It's not jumping the queue if the staff invite you to the front. It's not like you elbowed people out of the way!"