Infant Car seat on a Plane? How does it work?

[NotUrsula]

Technically, the rule is that it must not impede egress, and the minimum standard for that normally means it cannot protrude past the forward edge of the seat it is installed in. This has been the FAA directive since at least the late 1980's.

How strict the interpretation will be will depend on the airline, and for all practical purposes, if you want to be allowed to stay on the plane you'll have to accept whatever interpretation the flight attendant is in the mood to enforce. Delta is known to be more likely to allow carseats in middle seats as long as all the passengers in the row are family, but rear-facing seats will nearly always completely project through the entire seat pitch, just about touching the seat in front. Even Delta usually won't allow you to box a passenger in completely that way.

In a case where you have two carseats in one row, the normal rule is that the one that sticks forward the furthest has to go at the window. Most of the time this means that if one is FF and one is RF, the RF seat will go in the window spot. The adult goes in the aisle spot.

 

[DISNEYFOS]

Wow TiggerStac we are neighbors We are in Groton.

Anyways.. I'm not sure when it started and maybe certain airlines are more strict about it..but I've flown Delta, American, Song, JetBlue over the past three years and everytime I was "reminded" the car seat needed to be in the window seat by the flight attendant while boarding. For the exact reason mentioned above, in the event of an evacuation the car seat would block the person in the window seat even if that person was my husband or myself...

I'm wondering what we will need to do for our Oct trip with new baby..I'm assuming I'll have to book seats so my husband can sit with our 3 year old in one window seat and I'll sit with the baby in another window seat...unless somehow my DD gains 10lbs in the next 8 months so she doesn't need a car seat.

 

[TiggerStac]

Technically, the rule is that it must not impede egress, and the minimum standard for that normally means it cannot protrude past the forward edge of the seat it is installed in.

How strict the interpretation will be will depend on the airline, and for all practical purposes, if you want to be allowed to stay on the plane you'll have to accept whatever interpretation the flight attendant is in the mood to enforce. Delta is known to be more likely to allow carseats in middle seats as long as all the passengers in the row are family, but rear-facing seats will nearly always completely project through the entire seat pitch, just about touching the seat in front. Even Delta usually won't allow you to box a passenger in completely that way.

In a case where you have two carseats in one row, the normal rule is that the one that sticks forward the furthest has to go at the window. Most of the time this means that if one is FF and one is RF, the RF seat will go in the window spot. The adult goes in the aisle spot.

We were more than likely on Delta for all of our carseat trips (and that's who we are flying next month). We fly jetblue, as well (recently) but ds#1 hasn't been in a car seat on a plane for a while.

 

[Zoemakes5]

This was the rule when we traveled with DS who is now 12 when he was both rear facing and front facing car seats. But, as others have said rules are not necessarily enforced correctly.
We are a family of five, and what we try to do is window/middle, window/aisle/middle one right in back of the other. Then, two kids get window seats. Should be interesting our next trip, as DD will be old enough to have a turn too!

 

[Kae]

We did not use the base, when we traveled with the kids when they were under 9mths.

as far as the seat fitting up in the overhead bins, I don't think they would, But we rarely use the overhead bins.

Kae