Passenger Has Baby On Flight, Names Child After Flight Attendant

Yerevan, Armenia — A passenger has had a baby on a flight heading for Armenia.

31-year-old passenger Armina Babayan gave birth to a healthy baby daughter two hours before the Armavia airline flight landed in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital.

Babayan, who had informed check-in officials she was six-and-a-half months pregnant before boarding the long-haul flight from Siberia, named her newborn child after one of the flight attendants who assisted with the delivery.

Flight attendant Asmik Gevondyan, the recipient of that gesture, told the Associated Press that she noticed Babayan appeared to be in labor and coordinated the delivery. Speaking afterwards, she gave credit to her colleagues, saying:

“All of our crew helped to deliver the baby.”

The child, Armina Babayan’s first, is reportedly faring well. The nationality of the child may be up for some debate, however. According to HowStuffWorks:

“Almost every country in the world, as well as the United Nations, has procedures and recommendations for how to properly classify the geographic details of an in-air birth. The United Nations considers a child born in-flight to have been born in the airplane’s registered country. Some countries point to the city where the child first disembarked the plane as the place of birth, and to the airplane’s registered country as the place of citizenship. Of course, citizenship and birthplace are two different topics – citizenship is typically a larger issue and may require some paperwork, while writing a child’s birthplace on a birth certificate is often a less legally significant consideration.”

Babayan is not the first passenger who has had a baby on a flight. In 2006, a British Airways flight crew and two medical students helped to deliver a baby girl on a London to Boston flight.

Earlier this month, a woman died on a plane flying from Brazil to Dallas, Texas. The plane was diverted to Houston after the woman was pronounced dead aboard the aircraft.