How do you deal with carseats (for young children) on an airplane?

[SpaceAce]

I of course do not want to spend money on renting a carseat that we will barely use...so...how does it work when you want to fly and take your kids' carseats with you? Do you have to check them like other luggage, can you carry them on and install them into the airplane seat? What do you do???

Thanks to all!

 

[Jestocost]

You can check them as luggage and we have done that in the past. I'd recommend purchasing a cover that is made for car seats to protect it in the airline baggage system.

If the seat is approved for use on airplanes (it will be marked if it is) and you have purchased a seat for your child, you also can install it in the airplane seat and use it for your child during the flight.

 

[mexican-mouseketeers]

If you purchased a seat for your kids, bring your carseats and use them for the flight.

We have the gogokidz attachment for dd´s Marathon and have flown many times with it.

 

[Kae]

We check ours.

Kae

 

[DonnaL]

It depends on whether your carseat is approved by FAA for airplane use.......if it's FAA approved it will say so somewhere on the tag. If you've removed any tag go online with your model # and you should be able to find the information. If the carseat is not approved obviously you'll need to check it since the FA's won't allow you to use it onboard. However, when our grandson was younger, we used to use the carseat onboard and gate check the stroller. That way we had use of the stroller when walking thru the airport and we would use the carseat straps to attach it to the back of the stroller for transporting it thru the airport. Sometimes it was a bit cumbersome, but, then again sometimes it came in handy to have the stroller to use with a toddler also, especially if we had a delay or time between flights.

 

[dougsmom98]

We have done it both ways, we have checked car seats and we have used them. If the car seat is FAA approved, you can use it on the plane. We have done this numerous times. This is the safest way for kids to travel, but I have to admit that it is a major pain to carry the car seat through the airport. It is also a pain getting on and off the plane with the seat. Some airlines will let you install the car seat before anyone boards, but there have been other times that we weren't offered this. During the first trip with our twins when they were two, we had them use their car seats on the trip to Orlando, but it was such a pain trying to carry two car seats and all the stuff that we had to carry, so we checked them on the way back. We didn't use a fancy bag to check their car seats, we were able to just check them as is. We don't have super expensive, fancy car seats though so we weren't worried about them getting dirty or stolen.