Nurhachi Che, a 37-year-old IT consultant from Cherry Hill, New Jersey, was looking forward to two hours of uninterrupted work on her first-class flight from Philadelphia to Kentucky in February. Prepped to conquer all her work tasks, she carefully unpacked her laptop, her AirPods and her noise-canceling headphones. And then a mother and her baby plopped into the first-class seat next to Che’s, and she was pretty sure her undisturbed flight was doomed.
Even after putting in her earbuds and then noise-canceling headphones over them, Che said she was unable to block out the sound of the baby’s cries. When, an hour before landing, the baby and her mother finally fell asleep, the infant started slipping into Che’s lap.