W hether by choice or faced with no other choice, there are passengers who wind up spending their time overnight at an airport while waiting to catch their next flight. Sometimes a hotel is not feasible for many reasons — distance, cost, too little time between flights, avoiding having to go through an airport security checkpoint again are four of those reasons — and sometimes the only way to catch a few winks of sleep is to nap in a chair inside of the secure area of the airport.
There are more than enough impediments to getting a good night’s sleep inside of an airport — including airport employees working overnight; the air conditioning being too cold; the typical lack of comfort of the chairs themselves; the snoring of fellow passengers…
…but what happens when there are children running around laughing and yelling — or crying and screaming — to the chagrin of those sleepy passengers?
I witnessed both within the past few hours during a layover — no, I am working, not sleeping — and the parents did little to control their children. “Stop,” one parent said in a half-hearted tone which was barely audible as her two children ran uncontrolled all over the place.
One by one, the looks of death appeared across the faces of people who were awakened from their brief slumber and darted at the children — and especially at the parents.
I suppose that if the passengers really need their sleep, they should seek out a hotel room and pay for it — or, the parents should do what they can to control their children in order to minimize any disturbance to fellow passengers…
…but despite those and other solutions, there is a face-off of sorts: the bleary passengers versus tireless children who are over-energized and ready to go. Who wins?
What are your thoughts?
