An infant was abandoned at a Tel Aviv airport by his parents who tried to board their flight to Belgium without him after they didn’t purchase a ticket for the kid, authorities said.
The unnamed parents, who each held Belgium passports, had arrived at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel-Aviv Tuesday with their baby, planning to board a Ryanair flight to Brussels, the Israeli Airport Authority told local Channel 12.
But in line with officials, the family arrived at Terminal 1 late, after the check-in counter had closed, and the parents were either unable or unwilling to purchase a ticket for his or her child.
The mom and pop then left the carrier with their son next to the check-in counter while they rushed toward the safety line so that they could board the flight.
A brief cellphone video that was reportedly recorded on the airport purports to indicate a girl the child within the carrier and exclaiming in Hebrew: “she left him here, I swear!”
Airport staff noticed the seemingly abandoned infant, followed the couple and urged them to return for his or her son, before notifying airport security and the police.
The parents with their baby in tow were then taken in for questioning, Channel 12 reported.
The couple and their baby ultimately didn’t make their flight, outlet Israel Today reported.
A Ryanair manager on the airport told Channel 12: “All our staffers were in shock. We’ve never encountered anything like this. We couldn’t imagine what we were seeing.”
