Pretoria – A Belgian couple was forced to abandon their baby at an airport check-in desk in Tel Aviv, Israel, after arriving without a ticket for the child.
According to CNN, the pair were checking in for a Ryanair flight from Ben Gurion International Airport, Israel, to Brussels, Belgium, with their baby when it emerged that the infant did not have a ticket.
After realising they had to buy a separate ticket for the baby, they simply left the child in a pram at the check-in desk and proceeded to head for the security terminal.
In its website, Ryanair’s policy states that passengers travelling with an infant can either pay around £25 (a little over R520) for a lap seat or pay the same price as an adult for a separate seat for the child.
A spokesperson for Ryanair told CNN that the matter was now with police.
“The check-in agent at Ben Gurion Airport contacted airport security, who retrieved these passengers, and this is now a matter for local police,’’ Rynair was quoted as saying.
In a video posted by the Daily Mail, it showed staff at the airport caught off guard by the lone pram.
One of the workers pulled back a blanket to reveal the abandoned child underneath.
According to the UK publication, staff at the security check-in refused to allow the pair through and forced them to return to collect the infant before calling the police who descended on Terminal 1 and promptly arrested them.
IOL