lap baby on Southwest???

[ilovefh]

I've been on plenty of SWA flights where "lap babies" have been plopped down in the seat next to Mom even though the flight was full. After numerous announcements that the flight is fully booked and that all lap babies needed to actually be in laps, they finally have to threaten to check boarding passes before some of those entitled parents get the message that the flight attendants are are not fooling around. In the meantime, a plane full of passengers is delayed from pushing away and going wheels up because of their attitudes.

That's just plain rude and the reason we ask before we get on. We always make sure that there are open seats before we bring our car seat on.

They don't do that.


The reason that one almost never gets that "free seat" on SWA for a lap child has to do with SWA's boarding procedure. Unless the flight is so undersold that there are fewer people than there are rows, there is no way of telling if a window seat will remain open after everyone has boarded, and a carseat will only be allowed if there is an open window-position seat to place it in. I've seen gate agents tell parents with a lap child that the only way that they can offer the possibility of that "free" seat is if the parent agrees to board last. Most people won't take that offer, because they don't want to chance getting stuck in a middle seat holding a lap child.

We've been VERY lucky so far then! They've never told us that and if there are any seats open they've always allowed us to board in family boarding with our car seat.

13/14 flights we were able to take the car seat on. The one we didn't get to take it on was before I learned to ask the boarding agent. If I had done that I would have been able to take it on because there ended up being open seats, one of them being next to me.

 

[ellynsoh]

I know Sw insisted on birth certificates for our twins. They were eleven months old and maybe ten pounds each since they were premature.

 

[Freesia123]

I've actually inquired at the gate if there will be an empty seat next to me, had a yes, installed the seat and then told to take it out because we hadn't paid for the seat! It remained empty and my infant stated on my lap