Parents left their baby at the airport check-in counter while rushing to board their flight. They allegedly refused to pay for their child's ticket.
Authorities detained a couple with Belgian passports after they left their baby at Israeli Ben-Gurion Airport's check-in counter while rushing to board their flight to Brussels, Belgium, Israel Airports Authority stated Monday.
According to The Times of Israel, the parents planned to take their baby with them on a Ryanair flight. However, they arrived late, and the check-in counters had already closed. More than that, they did not buy a ticket for their son.
When asked to pay for their baby's ticket, they allegedly refused and "sprinted off toward security," leaving their child in the baby carrier at the airport's check-in counter.
We can't believe what we were seeing
"All the workers were in shock. We have never seen anything like that. We didn't believe what we were seeing," an airline staff member stated.
Jerusalem Post reported that the airport staff were stunned to witness the situation and decided to contact the police. The parents were then found and taken in for questioning.
As of writing, there was no update on the current status of the baby and his parents.
Newborn baby left in an airplane
In January of last year, a baby boy was also left behind, but this time, it was a newborn found in a toilet bin of an airplane.
It was New Year's Day when an airport staff discovered the newborn in the Air Mauritius plane's toilet bin while doing a routine customs check after the aircraft landed in Mauritius.
According to the Daily Mail, the baby boy was born during the flight from Madagascar but was not found until the plane touched down at Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam International Airport in the capital of Mauritius, Port Louis.
A 20-year-old woman, suspected as the mother, was detained. She initially denied the baby was hers, but a medical exam showed that she recently gave birth.
Both the newborn and the suspected mom were rushed to the hospital for treatment and reported to be doing well.
BBC reported that the suspected mother is a Malagasy woman who came to Mauritius on a two-year work permit. She was placed under police surveillance while in the hospital and was questioned when released. She was expected to face charges for abandoning her own child.
Related Article: Woman Gives Birth to a Baby on a Flight from Ghana to the US
