You may notice that the family group was separated, with child and father in the back and three others up in first class.
Now nobody on US domestic flights pays for first class, it's all about scoring upgrades, which US travellers seem absolutely besotted with. It seems from reading that the mother felt she had better control of what they freely admitted was a difficult small child, despite which the desire to claim an upgrade was put first, and she deliberately put herself at the opposite end of the aircraft.
Last edited by WHBM; 31st May 2012 at 17:11.