10 month old on lap but still need to take car seat...

[frankiemom]

My 10 month old daughter is going to be sitting on my lap but I still need to take my car seat because we will rent a car for a day and go to Tampa plus we need it to get back and forth to the airport.. Anyway, where do I put it? Does it go in checked baggage or can I take it up to the gate? If it goes into checked baggage do I just tag it? I don't want it to get destroyed. I saw bags for them but I don't really want to put out $40 for a bag I will use once. Thanks.

 

[extraredstuff]

We brought ours right to the gate and checked it planeside with the stroller, it's placed inside the plane and met us at the jetway in MCO. No problems with it.

FWIT - We have seen many come along the checked bag carosel, and they all looked fine. Looks like most tie down the straps pretty well so that don't catch on anything.

 

[kohlby]

If an empty seat on the plane opens up, you can put the seat in it. We always gate check our carseat, even though ours is a very heavy one and a pain to carry. I'm too paranoid about something happening to it to check it all the way through! When there hasn't been an empty seat, then I check it right at the gate. I'm not sure if they have extra bags. You may want to bring and empty garbage bag with your name all over it in case you have to gate check it.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

One step ahead sells a car seat bag...makes it easier to carry the car seat--and it protects it really well in cargo.

We took a car seat without the bag one time (forget it)--and checked it. Evidently 3 of us had very similar if not identical seats on that flight. Someone took ours--but noticed our sticker with ID information on it. I was frantic--and they saw us with the kiddos and asked if it was ours--and it was. Some other family had taken their seat .
If we had used our bag--definitely would not have happened...to us anyway.

I would do something--anything...that doesn't comprise the safety of the seat--to make it identifiable as yours. Even at the jetway if you gate check it--someone might see it and think how nice of the airline to pull their car seat out for them.

 

[Captain Blue Sky]

All carseats for lap sit children must be checked. Many airlines DO NOT permit you to check it at the gate, like mine. Some airlines will permit a courtesy blocked seat adjacent to yours IF the aircraft is not to capacity.

However, I would strongly recommend that you invest in a carrying bag as carseats can get pretty dirty, depending on the age of the aircraft and what else is checked. We invested in one and it kept the carseat looking like new and made it much easier to identify. One use will pay for itself, particularly if your aircraft has dirty cargo bins. But if your carseat is already dirty I suppose a little extra dirt won't really matter...

 

[robinb]

All carseats for lap sit children must be checked. Many airlines DO NOT permit you to check it at the gate, like mine. Some airlines will permit a courtesy blocked seat adjacent to yours IF the aircraft is not to capacity.

That's interesting. When I was travelling with a lap baby I always brought my car seat to the gate and I flew about 5-6 different airlines in that time. If there was room, then I could strap my DD into the seat (about 50-70% of the time) and if there was not it was just gate checked.

I agree with you about the carseat bag. SWA ate my car seat bag and I didn't buy a new one when I flew ATA next. On the way to Orlando (in MSN) they provided a plastic bag for the seat. On the way back, my booster seat was on it's own. It was damaged and pieces were missing. I tried to contact ATA baggage claim (not an easy task, only through internet or a lousy automated phone system) but they ignored me and I never received restitution.

 

[kohlby]

That's interesting. When I was travelling with a lap baby I always brought my car seat to the gate and I flew about 5-6 different airlines in that time. If there was room, then I could strap my DD into the seat (about 50-70% of the time) and if there was not it was just gate checked

Same here. Never a problem gate checking or putting the seat in an empty seat. We normally had two seats - one for DH and one for me. So, DH would go take an empty seat and I'd have one for the carseat. That way, the extra seat didn't have to be right next to you. I've found that people often offer to switch so DH could sit with us, though we didn't ask. I've flown on US Air, Delta, United, and Continental and never had a problem with it. Since one poster has, maybe check with your airline.

 

[Captain Blue Sky]

To gate check a car seat means to check it at the gate (NOT the ticket counter or curbside check in where most people check items). USAir does not permit this because there are no guarantees that you will be given a seat in the cabin free of charge so that your child can sit in it. It is somewhat surprising to hear that people expect that kind of service when the aircrafts nowadays are departing virtually to capacity. So if you were fortunate to be given a seat in the past, I would strongly recommend that you not count on that in the current industry environment...

 

[Minniepooh29]

My 10 month old daughter is going to be sitting on my lap but I still need to take my car seat because we will rent a car for a day and go to Tampa plus we need it to get back and forth to the airport.. Anyway, where do I put it? Does it go in checked baggage or can I take it up to the gate? If it goes into checked baggage do I just tag it? I don't want it to get destroyed. I saw bags for them but I don't really want to put out $40 for a bag I will use once. Thanks.

I bought the bag at Babies R us, I know you said you didn't want to. But I had my stroller damaged and airline did nothing for me. Once I rented a car seat from rental car company. You should call and ask might be better solution for you especially for one day and just back and forth from the airport.