CHINA — For both parents and passengers on a flight, few things are more distressing than having to deal with a screaming baby.

An air stewardess in China recently earned praise online for going the extra mile after she spent close to five hours soothing a crying baby on the plane.

The unidentified woman was working on a domestic Air China flight from Jilin to Chengdu when she noticed that a mother was having trouble keeping her baby quiet.

As passengers had been told to stay seated, the flight attendant offered to hold and help calm the passenger’s baby in order to minimise disturbance to others, Star Video reported.

In a video shared on Douyin by an unknown passenger, the flight attendant can be seen carrying the calm-looking baby, occasionally rubbing his back and gently poking his cheeks.

When the cabin crew eventually took their seats, the attendant reportedly helped to put the baby to sleep by patting his back. She continued to entertain the child when he woke up later, Hong Kong daily South China Morning Post reported.

The baby was said to have remained quiet throughout the rest of the flight.

The video capturing the heartwarming interaction has gone viral in China, attracting more than 1.7 million likes and 99,000 comments since it was published on Jan 15.

Chinese social media users were impressed by the woman’s "brilliant" maternal instinct.

One comment read: "Just looking at this child, you can see how gentle this young woman is. The kid didn’t reject her and still smiled happily."

Another user said: "Thank you for your hard work, young lady. Carrying a baby this big can be tiring even after a while."

Someone wrote: "Attentive service in every possible way."

Crying babies on flights are often a point of contention for passengers.

In mid-September last year, an American travel vlogger named "Mo" sparked outrage for suggesting "adult-only flights". She posted a viral TikTok video of herself smiling helplessly at the camera as a child screams and cries in the background on a plane.

Just a month earlier, a video of a Korean man berating a baby’s parent for not pacifying her child on a flight to Jeju in South Korea gained mass attention, sparking renewed debate on the matter.