I agree to a point.
However, first off, don’t simply believe the story of the “family”. People exaggerate what happened, especially innocently in the heat of the moment. Sometimes, they flat out embellish.
2nd, why suddenly this rash of stories on airlines? Do you really believe nothing much was happening until the Chinese doc was dragged by security from United? Something stinks. It’s the media, making stories.
As someone pointed out on another thread of another incident, there are thousands upon thousands of flights and millions of people each day. Even if true, these stories are still a tiny % and conversely, with so much flight activity, there HAS to be something adverse that happens sometimes.
My adversities have always been due directly to the airport (TSA, etc), not airlines so much! I hate flying for this reason, especially since 9/11 when they treat all like criminals rather than picking on the obvious suspects.
During my working career, I traveled all over the world. Europe, Asia, Australia. I was a “gold card” FF with United flying 100,000 miles per year. This was all before 911 and the TSA. Back then, flying was a pleasure, and the airlines treated you like you were a valued customer. Since I have retired, we've taken one trip to Hawaii, but because we refuse to accept the abusive practices of the TSA, we now drive when we go somewhere which, severely limits where we go. I guess that there are still enough people who need to fly, that the airlines have a captive clientele that is more than sufficient to fill their planes, so they have an attitude that they can be abusive and since people have no alternatives, get away with it. As I see it, only market forces will force them to change, and there are none in the foreseeable future. An occasional lawsuit from a disgruntled passenger is probably factored in to their cost structure.
I would go with that but why did the attendant lie and misrepresent airline policy? The preferred way for infants to travel is in their car seat.