Passengers cheer when a baby’s cry means a reduced ticket price with JetBlue flybabies.
A crying baby is one of the hazards of air travel. The little one’s distress adds to the stress of surrounding passengers. The child’s parent feels helpless and ostracized as looks of sympathy turn to glares of contempt.
For passengers on one recent JetBlue flight, however, crying babies elicited grins and cheers.
Each time a baby cried on Flight 213 from New York City to Long Beach, Calif., passengers were rewarded with 25% off the price of their next JetBlue ticket.
Four crying babies equaled a free round-trip ticket on JetBlue. The flight, which numbered several babies among its passengers, was close to seven hours long.
Perhaps inevitably, then, JetBlue passed out a plane-load of free tickets.
In a video titled “Flybabies,” which the airline posted to YouTube and social media sites in owner of Mother’s Day, passengers are seen laughing and cheering, instead of grimacing and fuming, when the kids start howling.
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“People smile at babies everywhere, except on planes,” Elizabeth Windram, JetBlue’s director of brand management and advertising told CNN.
“For Mother’s Day, we wanted to acknowledge how moms (indeed all parents and caregivers) often feel stressed while traveling with children,” said Windram, herself the mother of a toddler.
“We’ve had this ongoing mission to inspire some humanity, and we thought this was something we could weigh in on,” JetBlue’s Morgan Johnston told CNN.
That mission seems to have been accomplished. Passengers went out of their way to be helpful to parents and their children.
“We weren’t necessarily sure what to expect from folks on board, it was interesting to watch,” Johnston told CNN. “We started seeing people really want to entertain the kids and make it a comfortable environment on board.”
JetBlue hasn’t said of it plans to repeat the offer on any upcoming flights. (Hey, JetBlue: Father’s Day is in June.)
