Sharing a plane with another passenger with BO is the worst flying experience, but a howling kid on a long flight comes close. Flew back from Hawaii once with a kid about 3 or 4 ...in the upper first class deck of a 747. The kid was over tired to begin with and proceeded to howl. The minute he finally calmed down Mom or Grandma traveling with him would chide him for something and he would start howling again. The flight attendants finally allowed those flying closest to him to sit in the crew area in the back so they could get a minutes peace.
These were different legs of my last 18 hour overseas flight. On the way back, a 300+ lb. neighbor who wanted to talk.
I figure my trip this year is bound to go well as my bad karma was exhausted last year.
I don't sleep on planes. So on one red eye I spelled an exhausted young mother by walking her crying daughter around and around the plane. She finally settled down.
Funny, but guys my size holding a very small baby don't get a lot of flack from other unhappy passengers. Maybe it's the incongruity of the image due to the size difference.
Or maybe it was because they didn't want to disturb the silence.