Traveling with young children can be stressful even at the best of times. One mom was left shaken following a “hostile” airport encounter, then was met later by a flight attendant who went “above and beyond” to be kind to her.

Jessica Darrington said a man at an airport in Oakland, California, “swore and yelled” at her two kids, who are 3 years old and 7 months old, “because he thought they were being too disruptive for the airport.” The viral video was shared six days ago from the Instagram account Where Is Briggs (@whereisbriggs).

The trip took place on November 13, according to the clip, which has received 3.1 million views since it was first posted. The footage shows various shots of Darrington and her two kids at the airport and later on a plane.

Darrington told Newsweek: “My kids were just playing on a portable play mat that I bring when we travel. I felt like they were playing at an appropriate volume level for the airport.”

She said in the video: “I’ve taken over 150 flights with my kids and I have yet to experience anything like this and to say that it didn’t shake me up a little bit would be a lie.”

A June 2023 survey conducted for travel booking website Kayak asked 1,000 plane passengers in the U.S. and Canada about how to behave when flying. According to the site, “You are not allowed to tell off other people’s kids for misbehaving” because “90 percent of travelers think that’s not your job.”

The Instagram post comes as air travel continues to show strong growth after grinding to a halt after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In May 2023, air traffic globally was reported to be at 96.1 percent of May 2019 (pre-pandemic) levels, according to the International Air Transport Association.

Darrington told Newsweek that she, her husband and the two kids were traveling from Hawaii to Utah and had a layover in Oakland. Her husband had gone to the bathroom at the time of the incident at the airport.

“We’ve gotten looks before and a couple of moans if they end up sitting by kids on the flight, but never have I experienced anything so hostile as this when they were just playing in an airport terminal (at an appropriate kid volume),” she wrote in a caption with the post.

She said in the video that it had been “a really long travel day” by the time the family had their layover in Oakland. The footage shows her sitting on a plane with her baby on her lap and the other child in an adjacent seat.

While her 3-year-old is an “extremely good traveler,” he still is a toddler and “needed to get some energy out” during their layover, she explained in the clip. The video shows the toddler slumped over in a plane seat.

The mom went on to say that her baby is “still very new to this travel world and did not have a great flight.” Following the airport encounter, she was “very on edge” when they got on their second flight, she said in the clip.

“Anytime my little kids made a noise on the flight, I was so worried that somebody was gonna get mad. And this is where an angel on Earth stepped in,” she said in the video.

Darrington told Newsweek “I’m not sure if she [the flight attendant] could sense that I was a little tense when boarding the flight,” but she went “above and beyond on the flight to be kind” to the mother and her kids.

“She put me at ease during the flight because of her kindness,” the mom said.

The flight attendant dropped by to chat with her toddler several times during the flight and “had only nice things to say about my baby.”

She allowed her to stand in the back of the plane for a little while to “rock my baby and even gave us a book at the end of the flight for my kids.”

According to the video, the book included a handwritten message signed by “Angela” that read: “Welcome to the world little one. You’re such a joy being my favorite passenger onboard. A child who reads will be an adult who thinks. Enjoy.”

The mom said in the clip: “I can’t even put into words our appreciation for our Southwest Airlines flight attendant.”

A caption shared with the post says: “I don’t know this man [at the airport] and maybe he was having a really tough day, but I’m just grateful for that angel @southwestair flight attendant.”

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