car seat for air travel

[redtabby]

Hi, wonder if anyone can help me. We are going on holiday at Easter, with a baby, he will be 10 months at that stage. I have booked on Easyjet and have booked a seat for the baby as well, as I don't think I could cope with having him on my lap the whole way, he is so wriggly.

Easyjet say we have to provide a car seat for him to sit in, but it has to be forward facing and no wider than 42cm. Well, we are also hiring a car at our destination, so I would have been taking a car seat anyway, the problem is ours is rear facing, as recommended for a small baby, and so I will have to buy another one. This is fine, but can anyone recommend one which I can then convert to rear facing for use in the car when we get there? I have seen a couple online but they all seem to be wider than 42cm.

Failing that, I suppose he will just have to have a forward facing one, but does anyone know one which is narrower than 42cm?

Thanks very much for any advice!

If he is still in the rear facing seat for the car won't you have to take than too or is he big enough for ff now? He will be on your lap for take off and landing anyway so if it isn't a long flight you may not get much use out of the seat. Narrower base ones are Britax Freeway/Eclipse but you'd need to measure it in rl as not sure ven those are under42cm. Also even if they say you can use the seat make sure you have it in writing to show to check in as airlines are notorious for their inconsistencies

Well I belive there are seats that convert to be used either way, that would be ideal if I can find one that is small enough. Or else we would have to take two seats, I suppose, but that seems like a real hassle.

Easyjet have the regulations about child seats clearly laid out on their webpage, and I checked it with them when I booked the seat, so it should be OK, if I can just find a seat narrow enough!

hi, i wouldn't put a 10 month old baby in a ff seat yet. could you call the in car safety centre for advice? maybe they could recommend a seat that you could use ff for air travel and then use rf in the car. www.incarsafetycentre.co.uk

ds seat is the britax two way elite and can be used rf and ff but i'm not sure how wide it is!

HI, there, I will try contacing them. I have looked and looked in the internet for a seat of any kind that small and there does not seem to be one at all! Someone must have some experince of using a car seat on a Easyjet seat? Any idea of nay that would fit?

No, of course I won't put him in a ff seat in the car, so if can't find a suitable convertible seat, will have to just take two seats with me (am travelling with DH and two teenage stepdaughters, so have lots of hands to heklp me carry, thank goodness!).

hi redtabbly

how did you get on? i googled it for you as one of the websites said you needed a faa approved seats and it turns out that there are none available in the uk! you could maybe get one shipped from america but could work out quite expensive. not sure if this is true but maybe why you are finding it so hard!!

Well, I have seen on other sites that people have travelled on Easyjet with a Britax seat, so may try that (Britax Prince seems to be just narrow enough), although it will not be convertible. I will let you know how it goes (am travelling at Easter).

FAA approval would only apply to US-registered airlines.