‘Finally, some peace and quiet’, said one passenger, as the aircraft plummeted towards the Atlantic Ocean.

A historic moment in aviation occurred yesterday on a flight travelling from New York to London. Faced with the prospect of sitting with a screaming baby for an 8-hour long flight, passengers on flight HS742 managed to solve the problem without resorting to infant violence, by swapping the baby with the pilot.

The economy-class group voted to alter the seating arrangements, swapping the distressed 18-month old with the pilotof the ship, who was conveniently placed in a soundproof cockpit. The decision came after a general consensus amongst the British Airways passengers that the baby, who cannot be named due to legal reasons and/or the fact that nobody stopped to ask it, was simply too infuriating to fly alongside everyone else.

While the pilot was extremely grateful to have been given the ‘afternoon off’, he also realised things could have been quite different if not for the goodwill of his fellow riders.

‘Of course, given the baby didn’t have a seat of its own, there was always the option that I could have remained in the cockpit while itsat on my lap. I’m very grateful that the passengers thought that was unfair on me, and I spent a glorious 5 hours perched on the hefty thighs of Sandra, the mother of the child.’

This is not the first time that non-violent solutions to difficult airborne problems have been found by ordinary travellers. In 2006, on a long-haul flight from Paris to Sydney, a 30-stone man, taking up more space than he was designated, agreed to sit on the wing of the plane instead. On paper, an excellent way of compartmentalising. In practice, the plane has been doing the same large circle over Kazakhstan for 12 years.