anyone had any problems with budget airlines

[dizzy34]

I know a lot of people will be booking flights now that xmas is over and i thought it might be useful for someone if i told you what happened to us last year, esp if you are travelling with kids.
we booked with jet2 last year and was assured we could take a car seat for ds aged 2yrs, yet was told when we got to check in that we couldnt.I argued the point and after about 45mins they agreed. we got as far as the door of the plane and a woman in an orange jacket came running after us and refused to let us board. she said ds aged 2yrs should sit on the seat like a normal child....he is quadriplegic and reg blind unable to eat and drink and has lots of daily seizures. Well i verbally flew at this woman, how dare she make that comment about a child with disabilities etc etc...he is a normal child he just has extra probs. The air hostess said that she would try it but if it didnt fit we couldnt fly. we did get it on board in the end, but they refused to treat his special needs chair as a wheel chair and we had to walk for miles through the terminals at both ends carrying ds (who is big and like a dead weight), a car seat, a baby bag, a suction machine, feeding machine etc etc. we then had the same coming back. i did write and complain. there reply consisted of about 5 lines and was something along the lines of 'this is a budget airline, if you dont like it dont fly with us'.
i have to add, if it wasnt for these probs, the flight was good, crew were good and the leg room was good and we would use them again in diff circumstances

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no, we told them that he was disabled and had very special needs and they gave us extra carry on allowance for his suction etc, when we phoned they also said that it was okay anyway cos they allowed them on board for children who didnt have special needs. but at check in the girl said the policy had recently changed. Thomas cook airlines on the other hand couldnt have been more helpful, the captain went down to the hold to get his pushchair, and the stewards were fantastic with all the children on board. They had no probs with the car seat at all.

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i work for an airline and most airlines have a special travel chair to be used for disabled children you just need to ring up and see if they have one, the company i work for dont charge for its use but i dont know about other airlines have a friend works for jet2 but she had baby yday so cant ask her at moment. you can take normal carseats on planes but problem is most cant be secured there has to be a wide enough gap under the seat to be able to get the seat belt through, i have a maxi cosi one which i know is ok but last week we had to refuse 2 britax seats as they couldnt be secured. also they airline should have let you use wheelchair you should have been pre boarded by ambilift then they would have taken the chair and put it in the hold obviously crap airline i work for a budget one and like to think we look after our passengers

hi nulnulcat,
thats really interesting. dont suppose you can name who you work for? i will deff ask for the seat next time. i wonder whether it was cos we had the britax chair. im worried now cos we have booked with first choice for august but the flights are not on the computer till march and they have decided now that we might not be able to take car seat on board cos of ds age (needs to be under 30mth). We (dh and i) have been wondering what happens as ds grows? he cant hold any part of his body or take any weight, there must be some option to allow him to travel.

i work for monarch where are you flying to? we do scheduled to spain and just as cheap as the orange ones! there is no age specific on the travel chair regs say 9 but depends on age of child we have had 14 year olds using it, its really good with plenty of straps and head supports etc first choice are quite a good airline so they may have one