Traveling with Children - Direct (not nonstop) or change of planes?

[ruadisneyfan2]

Another vote for the non-stop. Unless of course it's some ridiculous time. Last time I let our dh make vac plans, he chose a 6am flight so we could be in MK by 10am. Duh, thinking like a childless couple when we had a 4 yo and 18 mo. It was right after 9/11 so security was extremely slow and we had to get up at 2:30 am to get to PHL by 4 am.
Another time, we opted for a connection in Raleigh and missed it due to fog in Philly.
Now we always go non-stop.

 

[Neelloc]

Both times we flew with kids from BUF to MCO, I took the direct, non-stop flights. Sept 2006 was on Southwest ($104 pp rt) and March 2007 was Airtran ($136 pp rt....purchased 22 days prior to flying...what a steal!) The flights end up being 2 1/2 hours and I found with lugging the strollers, extra stuff, it was so much easier not to have to chnage planes and worry about connections.

Our friends who went with us last March went down on the same flight we did, but couldn't get a non stop direct on their return flight (they returned earlier than we did.) They had to change flights in Atlanta at dinnertime and they said it was a nightmare. (And it was just their 2 year old with them.....)

 

[encinc]

OK. You've convinced me. We'll go with the nonstop flight. We're traveling in mid-March. The only airline with a nonstop at a time that is convenient for us is JetBlue. I would have preferred SW or Airtran so we could get a credit if the fare goes down. We know we're traveling again in December. The Airtran nonstop is at 8:45 am, which is a little earlier than we want. SW has one around 3:30 pm, which is a little later than DH would want (he'll be doing the 2-hr drive home after we land). We arrived at BUF around 6 pm on our December trip, and it was nearly 10 pm by the time we got home. We go back to work the next day, so DH would rather not drive home that late.

We've been so lucky with our connections in ATL on Airtran whenever we've traveled before - no delays, gates close together. Sounds like that was luck rather than the norm. We travel with just one carry-on aside from the 2 carseats (we use carriers rather than strollers for the kids), so we've never had problems getting between gates (which have always been in the same terminal).

I'll be watching for deals on JetBlue. Their flight leaves around noon, so the timing is perfect for us! Just a bit more than we'd like to pay right now.

Thanks for all the advice.