Parents Refuse To Buy Baby Plane Ticket, Leave Him Behind At Airport Check-In

A couple traveling with a ticketless child from Israel to Belgium left the baby behind at the airport's check-in counter before hurrying off to try and catch their flight.

Staffers at the airport noticed the baby in the carrier and stopped the couple, who were later taken in for questioning by the police.

The baby's parents are Belgian passport holders and were traveling from Tel Aviv to Brussels when the incident took place, the Israel Airports Authority said Tuesday. The couple had arrived late for their Ryanair flight and found that the check-in counters were already closed, according to the Times of Israel.

In addition to not having a ticket for their baby, the couple refused to pay for another ticket and eventually left the little boy in his carrier at the check-in counter. They rushed towards the security check but were eventually intercepted by the airport staff.

The workers told the parents to collect their baby and also informed airport security and the police about the incident. Cops reportedly took the parents in for questioning, and it is unclear if they managed to catch their flight to Brussels.

The airlines released a statement and said it was the first time they dealt with such an experience.

"All the workers were in shock. We have never seen anything like that. We didn't believe what we were seeing," the statement said.

The Israel Airports Authority later said the couple, on finding the check-in counters closed when they arrived at Terminal 1, left the baby on the conveyor belt so they could go and deal with security, the Jerusalem Post reported.

In an unrelated incident reported in 2019, a woman traveling on a flight from Saudi Arabia to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia had left behind her baby at the airport. After realizing her baby was not with her, the woman refused to continue on the journey and asked the pilot to turn the mid-air flight around. The conversation between the air traffic controllers and the pilot was shared in a video, where the pilot was heard saying a passenger had left her baby in the waiting area. The flight eventually returned to King Abdul Aziz International Airport.