Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To thnk that airlines should not allow lap babies on flights?

262 replies

Frannyhy · 29/01/2026 12:19

I’ve not flown for a few years, so I don’t know if lap kids are allowed by all airlines. I’m in South America at the moment, on a big trip.

My flight between cities was delayed yesterday due to bad weather. There were a lot of hot, tired people by the time we got on.

I was in the aisle seat and a woman with a baby arrived and indicated she was in the same row. I got up for her and she said something I didn’t understand and waited. Finally, she reluctantly sat in the middle seat with the baby on her lap. Her partner appeared from the other end of the plane and gave her some baby stuff.

She started complaining to the cabin crew, pointing at my seat. By now I understood she wanted to be in the aisle. I said no, and one of the cabin crew said to me in English, “Don’t worry we haven’t got time for this, we’re already an hour late. It’s only a 90 minutes flight so she can manage.”

I’m left wondering why lap babies are allowed on flights. He wasn’t restrained so if anything had happened, it would have meant he probably would have been seriously injured or worse.

I was on a cheap flight so I don’t care that I had to sit next to a wriggling baby. I just ignored him and read my book.

But I do think allowing babies on laps should be stopped. It’s fucking dangerous.

OP posts:
Original poster
Frannyhy · 01/02/2026 12:13

I never said at any time that I thought babies shouldn’t travel. I asked whether it is safe to have them on laps. On the flight I was on yesterday they were all on their parents’ laps with the attachable belts some of you were talking about.

when I came out here on a BA flight, there was a family who had been separated. The cabin crew were trying to negotiate with passengers to move, but everyone refused because they had paid for their seats.

The father started to get angry and rude, and security was called. He was told to calm down and sit down, or he’d be offloaded!

To be fair they’d booked last minute due to a family bereavement, so they probably couldn’t purchase the seats they wanted. But be warned! Currently thinking by travellers is that paying for seats trumps everything!

OP posts:
YourJustOrca · 01/02/2026 14:12

Frannyhy · 01/02/2026 12:13

I never said at any time that I thought babies shouldn’t travel. I asked whether it is safe to have them on laps. On the flight I was on yesterday they were all on their parents’ laps with the attachable belts some of you were talking about.

when I came out here on a BA flight, there was a family who had been separated. The cabin crew were trying to negotiate with passengers to move, but everyone refused because they had paid for their seats.

The father started to get angry and rude, and security was called. He was told to calm down and sit down, or he’d be offloaded!

To be fair they’d booked last minute due to a family bereavement, so they probably couldn’t purchase the seats they wanted. But be warned! Currently thinking by travellers is that paying for seats trumps everything!

Which it does.

nomas · 01/02/2026 14:15

Groovee · 29/01/2026 13:56

It sounds like she wanted her partner to sit in your seat and you to move.

Which would be extremely entitled of her.

And as usual the man sat in his seat, baby free and care free.

nomas · 01/02/2026 14:17

Frannyhy · 01/02/2026 12:13

I never said at any time that I thought babies shouldn’t travel. I asked whether it is safe to have them on laps. On the flight I was on yesterday they were all on their parents’ laps with the attachable belts some of you were talking about.

when I came out here on a BA flight, there was a family who had been separated. The cabin crew were trying to negotiate with passengers to move, but everyone refused because they had paid for their seats.

The father started to get angry and rude, and security was called. He was told to calm down and sit down, or he’d be offloaded!

To be fair they’d booked last minute due to a family bereavement, so they probably couldn’t purchase the seats they wanted. But be warned! Currently thinking by travellers is that paying for seats trumps everything!

Currently thinking by travellers is that paying for seats trumps everything!

Why wouldn’t it?

Changename12 · 01/02/2026 16:55

nomas · 01/02/2026 14:17

Currently thinking by travellers is that paying for seats trumps everything!

Why wouldn’t it?

Show quote history

Yes and BA charge a fortune to book a seat.

Rebeldiamond1 · 01/02/2026 20:50

MissPeaches · 29/01/2026 12:34

The safest option is to use a car seat.

Show quote history

Thats not necessarily true as ypu only have a lapbelt to restrain the car seat. Safest place is on parebts lap. If the plane crashes youre stuffed anyway.

Rebeldiamond1 · 01/02/2026 20:52

IngridBergmannn · 29/01/2026 16:19

Me neither. Never. Can't stand the goddamn entitlement. 'ooooh, I have a baaabyyy, it's sooo diiiificult for me, mooove' - like I give a single fuck about you and your brat? Want to sit somewhere specific: book it and pay for it. Don't want to pay - suck it up. You and your baby are not important, not 'speshul', and no one cares about you, except yourself.

I would go out of my way to NOT give them the seat.

Flew last week, and there was a couple, who sat separately, a few seats from each other. As soon as they sat down, they started harassing people around them to swap, so the dude could sit with his gf. No one did. The couple weren't best pleased, but had to suck it up. I don't see why some baby should be an exception.

Show quote history

Wow!

BeAzureRaven · 02/02/2026 01:59

titchy · 29/01/2026 12:35

That’s standard for babies in all airlines. How else do you think they travel? Sat on their own seat wobbling around.

The same way they sit in a car? In an infant seat that will keep them safe if there is sudden turbulence.

BeAzureRaven · 02/02/2026 02:02

Sofita90 · 29/01/2026 15:02

You cannot compare a car with an airoplane. It feels strange, but cars and planes are very different. Car crashes happen often and involve sudden, violent stops, and cars also have airbags that can seriously injure a baby held on a lap. That’s why a baby must always be in their own car seat in a car.
On a plane, serious crashes are extremely rare. The seat belt is mainly for turbulence, not high-speed crashes, and planes don’t have airbags. Aviation rules are based on overall risk across millions of flights.

Show quote history

But you can't hold on to your baby if you hit turbulence. Look at some videos on youtube. One minute nothing, they next second everything not strapped down is slamming into the ceiling. If the risk were so negligible, they wouldn't require the adults to be seat belted in. Why is it ok for the baby to be untethered?

Hufflemuff · 02/02/2026 04:31

Realistically if the plane crashes youre likely all to die anyway - no seat belt in the world can stop that.

CrazyGoatLady · 02/02/2026 04:46

SummerInSun · 29/01/2026 12:30

How do you expect people to travel if they have babies?!? To visit family for example? As PP said, all European airlines provide a special seat belt loop to keep the baby safe on take off and landing. On long haul flights bulkhead seats have baby bassinets that can be used until about 8 or 9 months, but you are required to have the baby on your lap for take off and landing and if there is any turbulence anyway.

Airlines don’t require you to buy a seat for a child until age 2, but after age 1 we always bought a seat anyway so that our child had space to sit, but that’s only viable once the baby can comfortably sit alone unaided for a full flight.

The nice thing to do in your situation would have been to offer to swap seats with the dad. Then the parents would have been together, with an aisle seat, and you would have been sat far away from the baby. Of course you’d don’t have to do that - “why should I give up the seat I want that I paid for etc?” To which my answer would be you don’t have to, but sometimes it’s nice to just do a nice thing for other people, and generally cosmic karma rewards you.

You can sod off with your be kind. If I've paid to sit in the aisle seat, which I usually do due to IBD, I'm not giving it up for some cheapskate family who won't pay and hope someone will swap because baaaaabeeee!

I cannot bear entitled parents who think having a baby means they can demand things of others just because. They can look after their own karma.

notimagain · 02/02/2026 05:38

Hufflemuff · 02/02/2026 04:31

Realistically if the plane crashes youre likely all to die anyway - no seat belt in the world can stop that.

I"m not sure what people are trying to achieve with posts like that TBH - it doesn't help inform the thread, all it does is scare nervous flyers.

Reality is there have been plenty of survivable accidents over the years where seat belts have saved lives.

I can't even begin to produce an complete list of those but in my working lifetime in aviation I can pick a few of the obvious ones from memory, starting with the Sioux City DC-10 then Kegworth, Asiana at SFO, and last years CRJ accident at Toronto.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page