Still thinking about this and honestly torn. We were flying Emirates business class with our 4.5 month old baby on a long haul trip, about 22 hours total. Already exhausted, baby is exclusively breastfed, cluster feeding, sleep regression, all of it. We were just trying to get through the journey.
At the gate in Dubai, one staff member told us to move forward and scan our passports. We followed instructions. Turns out they were doing manual scans and the scanner wasn’t meant to be used, but we had no way of knowing that. Another ground staff member suddenly started yelling at us in front of everyone. Like full on shouting, waving her hands, telling us to move back, treating us like we’d done something awful.
We were slow to move because we had bags, a baby in arms, and people behind us. That seemed to make her angrier. After we got scanned properly, my husband calmly told her she didn’t need to speak to customers like that. That’s when things escalated.
She called us back, loudly confronted us again in front of everyone, wrote “you called me rude” on a piece of paper, underlined it, and basically lectured us. She even shouted “I haven’t released you yet” when we tried to walk away. At that point I was shaking. Our baby woke up. I completely broke down.
Eventually she let us go. Later, she came and apologized to both me and my husband separately. She seemed genuinely remorseful and said she understood how hard it is to travel with a baby. The apology felt real.
Now we’re conflicted. The incident itself was awful and really affected us. But she did apologize, and we noticed she had two small kids as her phone wallpaper. Reporting this could seriously impact her job, and that weighs on us.
So I’m torn. The behavior wasn’t okay. But she did try to make it right afterward. What would you do in this situation? Report it so the behavior is addressed, or let it go since she apologized?
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