Ok, I'll bite. Why would it have been more acceptable to disturb the passengers on a bus or train? Is there something sacred about air travel that I don't know about?
I mentioned bus or train because they are ground transportation. Another poster had told me that they read in another article that the child had an ear infection. You should never fly with an ear infection, due to the changes in pressurization.
I doubt that story though, because the flight crews are aware of that and if the parents had said that their daughter had an ear infection to any of the flight attendants, they would have refused to allow her to fly FOR THAT REASON.
I took a train trip from Chicago to Maine back in the srping of '98. I was stuck next to a pack of loud college girls for half of the trip...12 freakin' hours, much of it at night.
Had I been on a plane, it would have been two hours, maximum. Big, big difference.