Anyone flown with a Britax Boulevard on Southwest??

[MinnieMe2DW]

We will most likely be flying Southwest(or any other airline I guess) next year and we will have a seat for my 3 year old son and my 16 month old daughter will be a lap child.
My question is, did the Boulevard fit in their seats?? We're renting a car there and need both car seats. I don't mind checking our Roundabout(which probably would fit), but the Boulevard was a $300 car seat, and no offense to those that work for the airlines, but let's face it, they're not exactly gentle with our things !!! I'm worried enough about our stroller and the other car seat getting thrown around and damaged.

I'm debating if I should get a cheaper booster seat and take that instead of the boulevard - I read in another post here that if you can't put the arms down on S/W you have to check it.

Any thoughts?

 

[squirrlygirl]

A 3-yr. old is not old enough to be in a booster seat. Or is he 3now?

I just bought a cosco scenera after some wonderful advice from this board! It was only $40, and while it's rather bare-bones, it has all the necessary stuff and DD actually looked quite comfortable in it! We'll be using that for traveling, it's so lightweight compared to the current seat!

Sorry I can't answer your actual question.

 

[all4fun]

If you're going to buy a travel seat for your 3yr old then I'd probably get an Evenflo Chase or Bolero, or a Graco CarGo - the Chase is one is the most inexpensive one that I can think of and all of these have an internal harness to 40lbs, are airline approved w/harness, and have tall top slots (17" ~ish).

The Scenera has the same height top slots as the Roundabout so your 3yr old will outgrow it height wise at the same time.

Sorry I can't help w/the size of the Boulevard question. I own a BV but haven't ever traveled with it (we use MIL's Bolero when we travel). The Bolero is fairly wide too and I rarely have a seat where I can put the armrest down on a few carriers but no one has ever hassled me about it. ETA: laughing at myself now. So you should cross the Bolero off the above list. I believe the Chase is a narrower seat though. That is the one I'd go with if I were going to buy a seat just for travel. hth

hth

 

[Colinsmom]

We've traveled with a Marathon on Southwest (same size seat as Boulevard) and it was fine. The armrests didn't go down, but they didn't care.

 

[teresajoy]

We just used the Marathon on Southwest in May. No problems at all, it fit nicely. I don't think my dd9's Regent would have fit thouh. But that is a LOT bigger.

 

[all4fun]

I don't think my dd9's Regent would have fit thouh. But that is a LOT bigger.

Probably not but it's not approved for use on airplanes anyway.

 

[fun4disney]

Don't buy a booster for the intention of using it on the airline. You wont be able to. You have to use the seat belt to hold the car seat in the seat, so you can ONLY use seats that would then have a buckle for a child (such as a 5 point harness). The reason for this is if your booster seat isn't seatbelted in, in turbulance or god forbid a crash, the seat would go flying out because isn't not secure and then the child also would not be tightly secure either.

Check with Southwest, they have fares for children under 2 (not a child fare, an infant occupping a seat) discount(usually 50% off). You should have both of your children secure. Then you don't have to worry about the airline people being rough with the car seats, you'll have both of them with you. Then that gives you 2 extra checked pieces of luggage and 1 more carry on to bring along too!

 

[Nanu57v]

The Roundabout does fit just fine forward facing, but it barely fits rear facing. I felt so bad for the guy sitting in front of me our of flight to WDW when DD was rear facing, because he couldn't move his seat. And strangely enough, he was one of the teens from our church also randomly traveling to WDW on the same flight as us at an airport 3 hours away from our homes.

Sorry i don't know about the blvd.

 

[teresajoy]

Probably not but it's not approved for use on airplanes anyway.

That's true, I wasn't thinking about that when I typed!

 

[MinnieMe2DW]

Thanks for the help everyone. We needed another car seat for dh's car anyway, so we bought a marathon from a friend, great deal in perfect condition. I'm going to look into the lower rates on S/W for children under 2, thanks so much for mentioning that !